| WHITE BOOK 2006 >> FIRST PART >>CHAPTER 1 | ||
CHAPTER 1. THE US GOVERNMENT’S HOSTILITY AND AGGRESSION TOWARDS CUBA HAVE REACHED DIMENSIONS UNPRECEDENTED IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO STATES THAT ARE NOT AT WAR. The aggressive threats, statements and actions of successive US governments, aimed at destroying the revolutionary process undertaken by the Cuban people, has been a constant feature over the 47 years of the Cuban Revolution. The unhealthy hostility with which the US treats Cuba has a sui generis character about it, it really is unique. A foreign policy against a country has never before had such an extensive and sophisticated arsenal of aggressive political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, military, psychological and ideological measures. No coercive and actively hostile policy taken against a country has ever lasted for so long. The Bush administration, in its more than 5 years in office, has taken action and made statements that confirm that the main objective of the US policy towards Cuba continues to be to destroy the process of profound revolutionary transformations that the Cuban people have been working on since 1959, using any means to attain this goal, and not ruling out the option of a military attack. The commonly used euphemism ‘to promote the transition towards democracy and respect of human rights’, conceals the imperialist motive of the United States’ plans of aggression against the Cuban people. The temporary factor of urgency, which has been added over the last few years to the messages and statements given by top Washington representatives as regards their effort to promote the ‘transition’ in Cuba – meaning ‘regime change’ in their own political jargon –adds an additional warning signal to the evaluation of the anti-Cuban plans of the Bush administration. The so-called ‘regime change’ has always been the US policy towards Cuba. The difference that occurred after the September 11 attacks was that, previously these attacks had been carried out undercover; their aggressive acts had various fronts and there was no established timeframe. Now, however, they have organized with utter barefacedness and for the entire world to see, a unique plan which comprises all of the aggressive, anti-Cuban programmes and acts. The hypocritical and cynical rhetoric about ‘freedom’ has been one of the main elements of the references to Cuba made in countless statements by President Bush and other important names of the Department of State, as well as by the most fervent representatives or the anti-Cuban, terrorist mob of Miami. Free Cuba from whom? The Cuban people freed themselves in 1959 from the bloody dictatorship of the pro-American tyrant Fulgencio Batista, from the neocolonial control that was being exerted on the island by authorities in Washington and by transnational corporations that owned the country’s main riches, the Cuban patrimony and even the very presence and influence of the American mob groups. The Cuban Revolution freed, protected and strengthened the country. The Cuban people broke the yoke of institutional racism, discrimination against women, nepotism and political corruption, murders and political killings, illiteracy, chronic unemployment, insalubrity, hunger and poverty. The only thing that remains for Cuba to free itself from is the American blockade and its hostile policy of aggression, the pretension and the plans by successive US administrations to redominate the island, its plans for underdevelopment inherited from colonialism and neocolonialism, and for an unjust international economic order that limits development opportunities. The possibility of a US military attack against Cuba is as real today as it was in the period leading up to the mercenary invasion of Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs), in 1961. To support this theory, it suffices to evaluate the unprecedented increase and intensification of aggressive acts perpetrated by the Bush administration against Cuba in a wide range of fields, particularly the threatening statements made in Washington, as well as in Miami, all in a climate marked by global aggressiveness expressed by the sectors in power in the United States The imperialist nature of the ideas and implications expressed in the new US National Security Strategy, which was officially presented on the 17th of September 2002, leaves no room for doubt. The main elements of this strategy are: 1. The preemptive attack, for which they claim the right to unilaterally intervene, in a quick and decisive manner, in any country that they consider to be a potential threat to their safety. 2. The change of regime as practice for overthrowing governments that that are not to their liking, and in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ impose regimes that guarantee the interests of the occupying power. The new US National Security Strategy points out, in no uncertain terms, that “while the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, it will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively.” That is to say, the United States will only turn to the United Nations and other foras of the international system when it needs them to support their projects for worldwide hegemonic domination, in a blatant display of disdain for multilateralism. The concept of ‘preemptive attacks’ is not a new one, but for the first time in history it has risen dangerously to become the main doctrine in the one and only superpower’s National Security Strategy. On the 1st of June 2002, in his speech to cadets at the West Point military academy, President Bush publicly declared his determination to subordinate every nation to the will of his government, pointing out that any nation, anywhere, now has a decision to make; either they are on the side of the US or on the side of terrorism. With the approval of a multimillion budget of more than 400 thousand million dollars for the Department of Defense and the appointment of several neoconservative rightwing hawks to the most important posts in the State, Defense and Justice secretariats, including the assignment of an expert in clandestine operations as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Bush administration appears to have begun to step up its policy of pre-emptive war and the consolidation of its global hegemony by the threat to use or the use force. The unyielding decision of the Cuban people to fully exercise their right to self-determination represents an obvious obstacle to the imperial plans of political, economic and military domination devised by US power circles, not because of Cuba’s economic or military capacity, but rather because of the political challenge that the attitude of a small country in the traditional ‘backyard’ of the United States represents, and because of the encouraging alternative that its project of social justice and equity means to the millions of people worldwide. It is because of this that many American documents produced recently dealing with the subject of national security have again referred to Cuba as a alleged “threat”. The theory that Cuba is a supposed ‘threat’ to the security of the United States has been fabricated using false pretexts that some high-ranking officials of the current US Administration repeatedly brandish in their speeches, among these are: supposed links that Cuba has with terrorism and the international trafficking of drugs; the supposed existence of Cuban programmes to develop biological weapons of mass destruction; and the eventual mass exodus of Cubans to the state of Florida. Every one of these false allegations has been publicly refuted and destroyed by the Cuban Government, using evidence that the United States has not been able to contradict. A few examples are given below, in chronological order, which reflect the spiral of aggression that has been afflicted on Cuba at the hands of the Bush administration over the last two years. 2004 - The adoption and precipitate implementation of the report for the so-called “Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba” The aggressive statements and actions were increased to unprecedented levels by the Bush administration in 2004. Two of the most serious actions were the passing, on 6 May 2004, and intensive implementation of anti-Cuban measures enshrined in the report of the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba Making reference to this Report, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Dan Fisk, said that “it was the first comprehensive U.S. government strategy to assist the Cuban people in hastening the day of freedom in Cuba (…) and to prepare the United States to support Cuba's democratic transition (…) these are a means to an end: the end of the Castro dictatorship (…)”. American foreign policy experts, who occupied top posts in previous governments and in international organizations led by Peter Hakim, president of ‘Inter-American Dialogue’, admitted that the US policy towards Cuba which comprises the Report attempts to generate violence and social destabilization on the island, as they revealed in a letter sent to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, which was published on the 9th of September in a report by correspondents of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada in Washington and New York. The Report examines the measures and action to be taken to topple the Cuban Government, as well as a project for the future political, legal, economic and social organization of Cuban society, according to Washington’s vision and under its military rule. Although this plan served Bush’s electoral interests in Florida, its main purpose is to implement the strategic plan that successive US governments have shared for more than 200 years: to take over the island of Cuba and adapt its people to American society. The American plan is a cruel, cynical, demagogic, interfering one which violates the Charter of the United Nations, International Law, the Constitution and law of the United States and the human rights of not only the Cubans living in Cuba and in the United States but also those of US citizens. The implementation of all the measures which comprise the Report for Assistance to a Free Cuba, would obviously require US military intervention against the Cuban people and the consequent installation of an occupying government which will implement the detailed plans that have been devised and do away with the constitutional system freely and sovereignly chosen by the Cuban people. - The persecution of Cuban financial assets abroad In an unprecedented display of aggression in the history of international financial relations, the US Government announced new measures aimed at hindering and trying to halt Cuban international financial operations. (See: Message by the Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz, read out on the Informative Round Table Discussion about the new economic aggression of the US government and Cuba’s response, in the Granma newspaper, dated the 26th of October 2004). The first sign that a new, large-scale act of economic aggression was underway was when the largest Swiss bank, UBS was fined 100 million US dollars by the US Federal Reserve, for the supposed violation of US sanctions against Libya, Iran, Yugoslavia and Cuba. The Swiss bank was accused of accepting US dollar bills or sending them to countries under a sanction regime imposed by the United States. From May 2004, the Miami press and congressmen of the anti-Cuban mob, along with the US Government itself, launched a systematic campaign, speculating and spreading rumors about the origin and destination of Cuban dollar funds, and using pressure and threats to intimidate any bank that could have financial relations with Cuba, in order to prevent them from receiving US currency bills when undertaking financial transactions with the island. This was aimed at depriving Cuba of the right to use the US dollars that it had made through totally legitimate activities, such as tourism. In connection with this new anti-Cuban hysteria, repeated calls were made for the Government, various Congress committees and the US legal system to investigate Cuba’s financial flow and to find and penalize those responsible for supposed ‘money laundering’ activities. In a speech made on the 9th of October to the Cuban-American Veterans Association, Daniel W. Fisk, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, publicly said, “another pillar in our strategy is to identify long-ignored revenue streams for the Castro regime and then move to degrade them. For example, tourism, which has replaced sugar exports as Cuba's main foreign-exchange earner”. On the 9th of June 2004, an article in the El Nuevo Herald implied that the funds deposited in the aforementioned Swiss bank had been accredited to persons or entities unknown in unspecified banks, when in reality theses funds were always used in transactions with internationally known companies. This newspaper hysterically demanded that the list of companies that had undertaken commercial or financial transactions with Cuba be brought to the light. The article, affirming that these names must be known, calls upon the Florida congress members, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart to exert pressure in order to find out where the money came from and what its destination was; this illustrates the seriousness of the plan that was being hatched against Cuba. On the 10th of June, 2004, El Nuevo Herald once again reported that the Miami mob, by way of its most famous spokespeople, congress members Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, was requesting that the US federal government investigate the origin and destination of the aforementioned funds. The newspaper opined, by way of the article, that the United States should investigate the origin and destination of around $3.900 million dollars that it believes the Cuban Government ‘laundered’ through an international program of the Federal Reserve, Florida congress people Ros-Lethinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart declared yesterday, in letters sent to the Federal Reserve and the Chamber’s Finances Commission. In a press release dated the 22nd of June 2004, Ileana Ross stated: “I’m waiting for the results of the investigations (…) if the Union of Swiss Banks (USB) is found guilty of violating US restrictions in transactions involving terrorist regimes such as Cuba’s, it is of vital importance to fine those responsible accordingly” Continuing with her campaign, Ileana Ross wrote a letter to the president of the International Relations Committee of the Chamber of Representatives, on the 30th of June, demanding that this matter be investigated. On the 3rd of June 2004, the Miami El Nuevo Herald launched a disdainful attack on the Inter-American Development Bank and ECLAC saying that the ‘set up’ is covered by the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) and ECLAC with inflated remittance figures that they attribute to the Cuban-American community, and, after expressing their wish that the matter be cleared up, they added that the scandal over laundered money shows that Cuba is a confidential haven for the money of terrorists and embezzlers that must be uncovered. Using the crude sensationalism characteristic of the anti-Cuban mob of Miami, El Nuevo Herald published an article on the 23rd of June, that translates as Search for Links with Cuban Funds in United States’, which, among other things, reported that “(…) the US had begun a legal investigation to determine possible links between ‘American entities and persons’ with $3.9 billion that Cuba filtered into the banking system, using a Federal Reserve program (…)”. Apparently, the lies about this matter that are published in Miami on a daily basis are so copious and blatant that the Swiss bank, UBS, felt the need to publicly deny any accusation of laundering money in Zurich on the 25th of July, 2004. A spokesperson for the bank explained that he “had no knowledge of new bank investigations” and that “the United States’ Federal Reserve (FED) and Switzerland’s Federal Bank Commission (CFB) have already examined the case”. As the Cuban Government opportunely revealed, the Bush administration was prepared to block the income that Cuba received from tourism and other services and stop Cubans residing in the United States from being able to send remittances to their relations in Cuba. The island would be prevented from making deposits in foreign banks of dollars that were licitly obtained and completely accountable for. Cuba wouldn’t be able to use these dollars to buy medicine or food, or import the supplies needed for their stores, where those who receive remittances from relations residing in the United States do their shopping. (See: Information report by the Revolutionary Government in the Granma newspaper, dated the 8th of June 2004.) It is impossible to imagine a more cynical and perverse formula: the United States, with its criminal blockade, ensures that the remittances from Cuban relatives and the payments by foreign visitors to Cuba are sent and made in cash. Now they were trying to prevent Cuba from using this cash to pay for its imports by employing blatant pressure tactics. Due to the situation that had arisen, it was necessary to take urgent measures that would protect the interests of the country, faced with the serious damage that the new anti-Cuban maneuver would cause. On the 23rd of October 2004, with this aim in mind, the Minister President of the Banco Central de Cuba, Francisco Soberón Valdés, announced Resolution No. 80/2004. In a complex but successful operation, the aim of which was not to collect dollars, but rather respond to a dangerous economic attack that was being developed, the Cuban Government took the US dollar out of national circulation from the 8th of November 2004. Also, from this date onwards, a tax of 10% was charged to every dollar exchanged in cash for convertible Cuban pesos, in order to compensate for the risks and costs that the use of US dollars had caused the Cuban economy, as a consequence of the aforementioned plans of the US Government. The measures adopted by Cuba in response to these plans did not penalize possession of US dollars or other freely convertible currencies, nor did the exchange rate between the dollar and the Cuban peso change; it continued to be one for one. All Cubans who possessed dollars had two weeks, from the 28th of October, which were later extended to three, in which to exercise their right to change them for convertible Cuban pesos at the tax-free rate of one for one. The resolution also established that any future transactions made with credit or debit cards would not be charged any tax, whichever currency may be being used, since it has nothing to do with the movement of cash. This complex aggression not only posed a serious threat to Cuba’s international financial activity, but also to the right to development and to the economic, social and cultural rights of the Cuban people, particularly the rights to food, health, education and employment of all Cubans, the people from whom this aggression was trying to deprive the financial resources and supplies necessary to ensure that they have them. In other words, the Bush administration was trying to paralyze Cuba’s international finances, in order to cause the economy to come to a standstill and provoke an extremely critical social situation, given the condition of a small, underdeveloped economy that is open and dependant on the income from tourism and foreign commerce. The accusation that Cuba launders money is a lie that should not be told by the authorities of a country in which 50% of all illegal operations of this kind worldwide are carried out by their banks. The fact that the United States, the world’s leading drugs market and consumer, accuses Cuba of laundering money earned from the trafficking of drugs is a defamatory lie that crumples at the slightest attempt to analyze it. The fact that the government of the world’s first country for corporative corruption and State terrorism, and that mob legislators of Cuban descent, they themselves corrupt terrorists, insinuate that Cuba laundered money connected to corruption and terrorism, would be a sick joke if it wasn’t for the serious danger that it poses to the economy and the wellbeing of the Cuban people. Once again the Empire’s attempt to economically suffocate Cuba failed spectacularly and crashed and burnt when faced by the wisdom, the foresight, the creativity and the close unity between the leaders of the Revolution and the Cuban people. Any impartial and objective onlooker was again left in no doubt as to the confidence, understanding and unconditional support that the Cuban people give to their Revolution and to its top leadership. - Substantial increase in material and financial resources used to encourage mercenary activity against the Cuban people The statements made in this regard by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Dan Fisk, on the 9th of October 2004, were eloquent. Fisk said, “We have provided an additional $14.4 million -- of a proposed $29 million in additional money -- to support the development of civil society in Cuba and the empowerment of the Cuban people in their efforts to effect positive change. Six million dollars has already been transferred to USAID to dramatically expand its work with civil society groups”. Fisk particularly stressed the conspiratorial work undertaken by the US interests Section in Havana, which he said continued “to provide more support to the opposition than any other diplomatic mission or entity in Cuba.” Would anyone really believe that the US Government really lends its support to simple ‘freedom fighters and defenders of human rights’? Who are they trying to fool? Throughout his speech, Fisk is really referring to the mercenaries of their anti-Cuban policy, who were recruited and trained by US special services and financed with federal funds assigned by authorities in Washington. The United States has never politically, let alone financially, supported the true defenders of human rights in Latin America; people who, at the risk of their own lives, opposed the bloody military dictatorships imposed by Washington. The United States has never supported the defenders of human rights in this region, on the contrary, they performed technology transfers in order to increase the effectiveness of acts of torture, extrajudicial executions and unnatural disappearances. -The limited trips to Cuba for Americans are deterred and increasingly plagued In addition to all of the restrictions on trips to Cuba that have come into force over the last few years and the new limitations applied by virtue of the Report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, the American authorities have increased the implementation of punitive measures, they have fined organizations and persons that have traveled to Cuba substantial amounts of money and have even began legal proceedings against them. Dozens of non-governmental organizations, including several groups of Cuban-Americans, have been visited by inspectors from the Department of Treasury, who has given them questionnaires to fill in within a maximum of 20 days, in which they are asked to give full details about what they did in Cuba. On the 10th June, 2004, two inhabitants of Cayo Hueso, Peter Goldsmith and Michele Geslin, the organizers of a regatta between Key West and Cuba, who were calling together navigators from all around the world, were charged by American authorities for promoting and participating in the Conch Republic Cup, in 1997, 2000, 2002 and 2003. Three Methodists from Milwaukee were fined 25 thousand dollars each for going to Cuba in 1999 to develop their relationship with the Methodist Church on the island. “The sanctions go against freedom of religion and are discriminatory”, a spokesperson for the group sanctioned expressed. - Increase in the amount of violations of the Migration Accords and in encouragement of illegal migration On the 5th of January 2004, three days before the date proposed by Cuba for a new round of bilateral discussions on migration, the United States suspended it indefinitely, citing secondary and insignificant elements that have been debated at length and in depth in previous migration discussions. (See: Statement made by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 5th of January 2004.) The Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega repeated an old threat, taking advantage of the temporary power difficulties with that were affecting Cuba, as a result of the serious breakage that brought the main electrical generator on the island to a halt for months. Noriega said, “we have forewarned the Cuban Government that the United States considers any attempt at manipulating or provoking massive emigration towards our coasts a threat to national security”. The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement which expressed the view “that the sentence issued by the US authorities against these hijackers is a positive sign (…) and that it is in keeping with the interests of Cuba and the United States expressed in the Migration Accord, signed in 1994, aimed at directing Cuban migration towards safe, legal and orderly channels and opposing and preventing the use of violence by those who tries to arrive, or do arrive in the United States from Cuba by hijacking crafts and vessels”. (See: Statement by MINREX, dated the 24th of April, 2004.) While the US Government had made the relationship between Cuban emigrants and their country of origin increasingly difficult, Cuba, faced with a great challenge, continued to make progress and smoothen out their relationship with Cuban residing abroad, which is a continual and irreversible progress, in order to normalize and relax their relationship with Cuban emigrants and residents abroad. (See: Press conference of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Pérez Roque, on the 3rd Conference ‘The Nation and Emigration’, which took place at MINREX on the 18th of May 2004 and his speech at the opening of the meeting on the 21st of May, 2004.) Cuban nationality was returned, in a gesture of peace, justice and good will and as recognition of their positions of respect and rapprochement to their Homeland, and to their work towards family contact and the normalization of relations between the two countries, to seven members of Brigade 2506, which took part in the defeated mercenary military invasion of Playa Girón, in April 1961. These people had lost their nationality as an accessory legal sanction. Also, in September 2003, Cuba publicly announced that from the 1st of June 2004, Cubans residing abroad would no longer have to request an entry permit in order to visit Cuba, with the exception of a few members of terrorist groups for understandable protective measures. They can simply get their passport authorized free of charge in order to enter the country, as often as necessary. Due to the reduction of flights in both directions because of the measures and policies that are being applied by US authorities, and the increase of all types of measures aimed at aggravating the economic situation affecting Cuba and Cuban families, a migratory process could arise which may spiral out of control, if the Migration Accords fail, bringing with it the excuse to launch a military attack on the island.
- Cuba is included in a unilateral decertification report on “misconduct” issued by the Department of State Over the last few months, the Bush administration has increased its efforts against the development of the Cuban tourist industry, with the aim of suffocating its economy. Encouraging and fabricating a false image of Cuba as a ‘rogue’ country is a fundamental part of this work. The danger of the media campaigns of lies and defamation against Cuba stems from the fact that there are many people around the world who know very little about the Cuban revolution and could fall victims to the lies and ploys that the US Government is spreading by way of its extensive media. The latest report issued by the Department of State on the situation of terrorism worldwide, published in April 2004, once again placed Cuba on the list of countries that back international terrorism. The US Government has never proved, and could never prove that Cuba has participated in any terrorist act. Their false pretexts have been systematically discredited and refuted as time has gone by; this has caused many, including members of the US Government, to admit that the inclusion of Cuba on the aforementioned list is no more than a political maneuver against our country. Paradoxically, Cuba’s proposal to sign a Bilateral Programme to combat terrorism, which was first presented to the US Government on the 29th of November 2001, and has been put forth by Cuban authorities on several occasions since, has been rejected by the United States by way of empty, irrational and unfounded arguments. The policy of the Cuban Revolution with regard to terrorism does not accept questioning of any type, especially from Washington. Cuba condemns all terrorist acts, methods and deeds, in all their shapes and forms, regardless of the location, the perpetrators, the victims and the motive. The island is also opposed to any act aimed at encouraging, supporting, financing or covering up any terrorist act, method or deed. Cuba has seen, perhaps more that any other country, the consequences of terrorist acts. Since the very first days of the Revolution, Cuban men, women and children have fallen victims to the cruelest and most ruthless forms of terrorism, which have often been backed, protected, financed and organized by the US Government itself, or by its protégés in the anti-Cuban organizations of Miami. On the 14th of last June, the ‘Report on the Trafficking in Persons and Human Smuggling in 2004’ was presented, it was drafted by the Department of State and, for the second time, included Cuba. On this occasion, a more extensive and negative part, abounding with lies and insults, was devoted to Cuba, which drew particular emphasis to the supposed existence of child sex tourism, hard labor and prostitution of minors on the island. The US Government lacks the morals and credibility necessary to question Cuba about the rights of children, not to mention human smuggling. The United States is one of only two countries in the world that hasn’t ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, despite the fact that it was approved 14 years ago and, with 189 ratifications, it constitutes the most universal legal instrument on human rights. Motivated by unscrupulous political aims, the United States is guilty of implementing one of the most atrocious operations to traffic children that has ever been carried out. In the 1960’s, Operation Peter Pan, as it was known, separated 14 thousand Cuban children from their parents and took them to the United States; many of these infants were molested and raped by their guardians, teachers or carers. The United States is the world’s leading consumer and encourager of the illegal industries of pornography and prostitution; these industries abuse children, and, together, are one of the fundamental elements that bring about the international trafficking in persons. In 1999, the Cuban Parliament modified the Penal Code in order to recognize the sale and trafficking of minors for the purposes of corruption, pornography, prostitution, organ trading, hard labor and the consumption or dealing of drugs, as well as crimes against the usual migratory process and the trafficking of people, among others, as criminal offenses and to severely punish them. The penalties handed down for other existing crimes, such as rape, violent pederasty, corruption of minors, procurement, trafficking in persons and crimes committed with minors or in the case that victim is a minor, were also increased. Cuba has been both conscientious and severe with the implementation of this Law, in order to prevent and punish any possible crime of this nature. Between 2000 and May of 2004, 881 procurement trials were held and 1.377 people were sentenced. From 1999 to June 2004, 112 people were arrested for trafficking of human beings, the majority of whom have now been sentenced by Cuban courts. On several occasions during the migration talks that have taken place between the two countries since 2000, Cuba has put forth concrete proposals to collaborate with the US in order to combat the trafficking of human beings, drugs, terrorism, child pornography, and other related crimes. The United States has always turned them down. It is also cynical and hypocritical that in every one of these reports – there are also reports relating to the lists of states that supposedly promote terrorism, restricting democracy and human rights, and limiting religious freedom, etc. – there is no mention of the position of the United States, one of the countries that would have to answer the most to the international community for their ‘misconduct’ and for the grave violation of its own people and of other peoples worldwide. - Information on Cuba is manipulated and twisted obviously aiming at lying and justifying the threats of aggression and brutal measures taken against the Cuban people On the 16th of July 2004, in a speech clearly influenced by the upcoming elections, given at a hotel in Tampa, Florida, Bush didn’t hesitate to manipulate statements made by the Cuban president, Fidel Castro, to the effect that “Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world,” arriving at the mistaken conclusion that Cuba “is a destination for sex tourism” (See: Speech made by President Fidel Castro during the ceremony for the 51st anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, given at the Central University of Las Villas on the 26th of July 2004.) “We also face a problem only 90 miles off our shores. The regime of Fidel Castro has turned Cuba into a major destination for sex tourism,” said Bush during a conference on the trafficking in persons. It was actually the bloody dictator, Fulgencio Batista –with the support and protection of the United States - who encouraged the US mob to convert Havana into a paradise of sex, gambling and prostitution in the 1950’s, for the enjoyment of tourists and US marines. The Cuban Revolution had to work tirelessly in order to rehabilitate and reintegrate into society the hundreds of thousands of prostitutes that it inherited as a legacy of the US neocolonial control over the island. Before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, around 100 thousand women were either directly or indirectly involved in prostitution, due to poverty, discrimination and unemployment. The Revolution educated these women and sought work for them. From then on the so-called ‘tolerance zones’ that had existed in the US influenced republic, were prohibited. When the press looked into the source used by the Executive for this unusual statement by President Bush, White House officials said that it was a thesis written on Cuba in 2001 by a student, which was available on the website of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy. At the time, the student in question, Charles Trumbull, who now attends the Vanderbilt University Law School, was studying at Dartmouth College. The young man was annoyed at how his project had been manipulated by the White House, and said, “It is really disheartening to see bits of my research contorted, taken out of context, and used to support conclusions that are contrary to the truth”. The American newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, which could never be accused of being kind to the Cuban Government, remarked that the only thing clear to the student is that the speech made by Bush manipulated the contents of his work, while he maintained that the meaning that the Cuban leader gave his idea was clear in his thesis. The young student, who carried out field studies on the island, explained to the Los Angeles Times that it shows that they (White House officials) didn’t read much of the article. The cable services of news agencies later reported the following clarifications made by the student: “(…) Prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Castro, who outlawed prostitution when he took power in 1959, initially had few resources to combat it. But beginning around 1996, Cuban authorities began to crack down on the practice. “Although prostitution still exists, it is far less visible, and it would be inaccurate to say the Government promotes it.(…)” White House officials told the Californian newspaper that the only source of information that they had researched for the President’s speech in Tampa was the aforementioned thesis. Although the attempt to twist the contents of the thesis was exposed by the author himself, a spokesperson for the Department of State pointed out to the newspaper that the material on Cuba was hastily added, barely a day before the speech, which only gave them time to find this thesis, and according to other cables, the Washington representative ‘defended the inclusion (of the phrase), arguing it expressed an essential truth about Cuba”. Or rather, that in the eyes of the White House the ‘essential truth about Cuba’ is anything that the President chooses to say, regardless of whether it has any bearing on the truth. In the words of Julia Sweig, of the Council on Foreign Affairs, “it is extremely dirty and it shows that when it’s a question of policy towards Cuba, they — the US administration — are willing to resort to any trick”. On the 18th of September 2004, The New York Times, quoting sources from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), revealed that the United States was also lying when it accused Cuba of developing offensive programmes of biological weapons. According to this newspaper, the CIA, apparently under pressure following the scandal over their ridiculous reports on the presence of arms of mass destruction in Iraq, were now rejecting the reports that they themselves had drafted in 1999 that linked Cuba, without the slightest shred of evidence, to the supposed production of biological weapons in third countries that had been classified by Washington as promoters of terrorism. According to NOTIMEX, the US intelligence services are preparing a second report, which will be completed in a few months, to correct the version that said that Cuba would produce arms of mass destruction and replace it with another that indicates the suspicion that the Cuban regime would have the ‘technical capacity’ to produce them and adds that ‘it is unclear’ whether or not they are being produced. The report mentions the fact that Cuba has “a medication and biotechnology program that it uses to produce vaccinations for a broad immunization program, recognized by doctors and scientists” and also mentions the fact that “many of these products are sold in other countries”. Some of these sales were manipulated by the US Government as “potential Cuban threats”. Known terrorists of Cuban origin from the Comando F4 organization that operates in South Florida, were invited to the Channel 41 show on Miami TV, hosted by Oscar Haza, nephew of the bloody Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, whose regime ended the lives of more that 20 thousand Cubans between 1952 and 1958. Dressed in military gear, along with other members of his terrorist organization, the leader of Comando F4, Rodolfo Frómeta, openly stated that his organization has people ready to carry out armed attacks on the Cuban Government, that his group trains with AK47 and semi-automatic weapons and that these were legally acquired in the United States, although he admitted that he didn’t have the documentation to prove this. In a communication signed by the self-appointed Colonel Reinaldo Acosta, Comando F4 issued a warning about terrorist attacks on foreign investments in Cuba, saying that “people who invest in Cuba are just as responsible for our misfortune and, as such, their investments will be treated as military targets as of 3 to 4 months from now”. In an open letter to Bush, dated the 9th of May, 2003, Rodolfo Frómeta and other leaders of the Comando F4 organization informed Bush of their plan to carry out armed attacks on Cuba and stated that their “greatest wish was for this great country —its administration, in this case — to dissolve the Neutrality Law once and for all (…) because even the constitution of this great nation sanctions the use of force (…) many are the exiles or leaders of the exile community’s organizations who request harsh sanctions and even an invasion, we support both, but, we reiterate, the F-4 Commandos once again request being authorized to take action, physically unfettered”. One of the strongest evidence to prove the conspiracy and the US official tolerance of terrorism against Cuba, are the statements made on channel 41 (UNIVISION), on the 22nd of March, 2004, by the Republican congressman and former Florida district attorney of Cuban descent, Lincoln Díaz-Balart, who said in an interview with Oscar Haza that “Castro’s assassination is the only option for Cuba”. He added that when he was district attorney, he didn’t find “a single law prohibiting me from expressing my opinions this way”, this statement was also made on channel 41 of Miami TV. No one in the United States, a country where the rule of law and respect of the International Law apparently prevails, replied or even criticized him. Trusting in the impunity that is granted in Miami to those who are in favor of the use of terror, Díaz-Balart ratified his murderous statement in an interview with the journalist, Adriana Vargas, on the “La Noche” programme on RCN, on the 13th of April 2004. The family of the anti-Cuban mobster, Lincoln, has a long history of crime and terrorism. In the 50’s, Rafael Díaz-Balart, the father of the anti-Cuban federal congressmen for Florida, Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart, was one of the most active leaders of the bloody machinery of repression set up by the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista; he was a congress member and right hand man of the then Government Minister. Soon after he arrived in New York in January 1959, Rafael Díaz-Balart founded, with the blessing of US authorities and together with a group of fleeing, repugnant henchmen, the ‘White Rose’ organization (which is also known by its Spanish name, ‘La Rosa Blanca’), the first terrorist group in the long history of the Cuban counterrevolution. The White Rose was behind countless terrorist attacks on Cuba, including the brutal terrorist attacks on the largest Havana department stores La Época and El Encanto, which took human lives. On the list of murderers who joined Rafael Díaz-Balart in the White Rose, appear the names of Pilar García, head of the National Police under the Batista dictatorship, who personally took part in torturing prisoners and ‘Colonel’ Merob Sosa, guilty of slaughtering hundreds of peasants in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, to the east of Cuba, who were killed for supporting the guerilla movement led by Fidel Castro. In 1989, Lincoln Díaz-Balart included in his manifesto supported by the terrorist National Cuban-American Foundation, the pardon of Orlando Bosch, the international terrorist of Cuban descent. Bosch took a leading role in the explosion in mid-flight, over Barbados, of the Cuban DC-8 passenger plane, in October 1976, in which 73 people were killed. Bosch was considered to be a terrorist by the FBI and for that reason he was awaiting deportation by US authorities. The president at that time, George Bush (senior), pardoned him in response to action taken by representatives of the anti-Cuban mob in Miami. On the 27th of August 1994, Lincoln openly advised the White House to allow Miami terrorists to launch attacks on Cuba from US soil. Lincoln Díaz-Balart has always been linked to the most extreme sectors of Miami, starting with the group of murderers that comprised the paramilitary committee of the National Cuban-American Foundation and who today form the Cuban Liberty Council, the anti-Cuban organization preferred by the current Bush administration, and the brains behind the anti-family measures announced on the 6th of May 2004. Among their followers are Horacio García, the ‘banker’ of the international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the mobster Luís Zúñiga Rey, who unethically and illegally joined the official US delegation to the 60th session of the Commission on Human Rights and Ninoska Pérez Castellón, daughter-in-law of the renowned henchman of the Batista dictatorship, Roberto Martín Pérez, who was the leader of the terrible Radiomotorized Brigade. Lincoln Díaz-Balart actively participated in the operation of intimidation and terror that was implemented on the 22nd of November 2000, when a group of ‘protestors’ of Cuban descent, recruited by the Republican Party, interrupted the recount of votes in Miami-Dade with shouts and threats, thus ruling out the possibility that the fraud committed against the Democrat candidate, Al Gore, would come to light. It was Lincoln who told Miguel Saavedra, head of the anti-Cuban organization ‘Vigilia Mambisa’, to cause the commotion with his group of criminals. It is illegal in the United States, and in any part of the world, to defend terrorist acts on television. Encouraging the assassination of other world leaders is also illegal under the Neutrality Act of the United States. There is no better proof of the US Government’s public complicity with such terrorists than the impunity with which they announce their misdeeds on television. - Funds raised and technical resources upgraded to illegally undertake subversive radio and TV broadcasting against Cuba. As part of the implementation of the anti-Cuban measures announced on the 6th of May, 2004, the US Government began to broadcast illegal signals, on a weekly basis, of the ill-titled Radio and TV Martí to Cuba, using a flying platform set up in a C-130 military plane operated by the National Guard. For the transmissions, a medium wave frequency, which had previously never been used for American radio stations is being employed. The flying platform cost 70 thousand dollars a day. In 2004, programs were also broadcasted over the Internet, 24 hours a day. According to what Daniel W. Fisk, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on the 9th of October 2004, “To circumvent Castro's jamming, Commando Solo, the C-130 aircraft equipped with a powerful electronic transmission capability, has so far flown four times, beaming Radio and TV Marti signals to the island(…)”. The ill-titled Televisión Martí is the only invisible television station in the world, thanks to an ingenious and economical method of interception, established by Cuba, in exercise of its sovereignty.
- Increase in action against the Five Cuban Heroes, held as political prisoners in the Empire, and against their families As part of the ploy to harass the Five Cuban Heroes, held as political prisoners in the Empire, and their families, last year the US Government reduced the amount of consular visits by the Cuban Interests Section in Miami to one every 3 months, it stopped the employees of the Cuban Interests Section from accompanying the families of the Five, it rejected requests for visas for the families of the Five that were made through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it repeatedly refused to issue visas to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, the wives of two of the arbitrarily detained anti-terrorist fighters and also excessively delayed the process of issuing visas to the other relations. The ruthless acts qualify as cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, according to the current international instrument to combat and sanction torture, of which the United States is a State Party. - Increase in the persecution of Cuba’s tourist, business and financial transactions in third countries The stepping-up of the blockade in order to reduce Cuba’s hard-currency income, is one of the main ways in which the Bush administration has intensified its policy of hostility and aggression against the Cuban people. In 2004, regulations of the blockade were applied to 13 companies linked to Cuba and to their affiliates abroad, which specialized in trips and the sending of packages and remittances; this has made it impossible for them to transact with people or institutions that are subject to US jurisdiction. This measure even made it illegal to access the websites of these companies. On the 26th of October, the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), banned any US resident or citizen from carrying out financial transactions on the website www.sercuba.com, through which they could supposedly send remittances to Cuba via the Internet. OFAC was trying to find an easy way to pressurize the associates of Ser CUBA in Europe, and even American citizens, or citizens of Cuban descent residing in that continent, who were now being threatened with large fines and even jail sentences, if they disobeyed the ‘imperial edict’. This is a question of extraterritorial measures that are illegal and act in extreme violation of the very Constitution of the United States, which protects the right of every citizen to travel and use their personal resources without limitation. - Announcement of new measures against Cuba in June and July of 2004, with the aim of further restricting the flow of hard currency and consumer goods to the island On the 22nd of June 2004, the US Government made it illegal to send clothes and toiletries such as soap and shampoo, veterinary products, fishing tackle and equipment for making soap and other similar products. It also arbitrarily limited the people to whom the packages could be addressed – only offspring, parents, siblings or grandchildren - the frequency and quantity were also reduced, meaning one package for every household compared to one for every person, as was the practice before. The statement made by the Department of Commerce, which announced these measures, implicitly acknowledged the negative impact that these new restrictions would have on Cubans who received packages from their relations in the United States, when it said that they “represented humanitarian aid for the Cuban people in critical areas”. On the 8th of July, 2004, the US Coast Guard Service also increased measures to prevent the possibility of vessels traveling to Cuba. It announced, on this day, a regulation that stipulated that any American ship of less that 100 meters in length, that didn’t need special permission to travel to Cuba, now had to obtain a special permit if it was planning to sail to Cuba, even if wasn’t going to leave directly from US waters. Boats found not to have this permit could be fined or confiscated and the persons responsible penalized. Recently, US citizens and permanent residents were banned from buying any Cuban product, such as rum or cigars, even in a third country. And not even for personal use outside of the United States. Purchase of these products alone is a crime for any US citizen. Violation of these norms could be punishable by trial and a fine of up to a million dollars for corporations and 250 thousand dollars for individuals, an up to ten years imprisonment, according to an announcement made by the US Treasury Department. The US Department of the Treasury made it quite clear in a recent communication that “regulations prohibit people subject to US legislation to buy, transport, import, become involved or participate in any transaction connected to merchandise outside of the United States, if said merchandise is of Cuban origin, is or has been located or transported in and through Cuba, or has been made or derived, in whole or in part, from any product which has been grown, produced or manufactured in Cuba” As a result of the restrictions put into effect by Washington last June to restrict the number of flights bringing Americans and Cuban emigrants to the island, the number of Americans traveling to Cuba fell to less than half in 2004, according to figures from the US Department of State. Between July and December of 2004, 50.588 American citizens traveled to Cuba in charter flights, compared to the 119 938 that visited during the same period the year before. This figure represents a reduction of 57.47%. Also, reservations dropped to 13.735, almost two thirds less that the amount made during the same month in 2003. The new US measures will not manage to economically suffocate the island. Despite the recent intensification of the American blockade, two devastating hurricanes which caused losses to the sum of 2.146 million pesos, the unprecedented increase in oil and a lengthy draught that is affecting eastern end of the country, the Cuban economy increased by 5% in 2004, a higher rate than the previous year. In 2004, for the first time, Cuba received more than two million foreign tourists in one year, 8% more than in 2003. The export of goods increased by 32.5%, exceeding 2 thousand million dollars, a sum that hadn’t been surpassed since 1991. - Intimidation of Cuban emigrants in the United States in order to calm their increasing displays of dissatisfaction with policies towards Cuba Leaders of the Cuban-American mob based in Miami, threatened the Cuban emigrants residing in the United States who, in their hundreds, had been carrying out protests in that city against the measures that reduced travel and family remittance to Cuba, that they could loose their residency in the US. ‘Exile’ in Miami is a myth dreamt up by the US special services in cahoots with the anti-Cuban mob, with propagandist aims in mind, and is something for which the hundreds of thousands of people who have emigrated from the island for economic reasons or to be reunited with their loved ones are in no way responsible. The policy of the Cuban Revolution in this area has always been the same, since the very beginning: participation and permanent involvement in the revolutionary process is and always will be the individual decision and voluntary choice of every citizen. Those who wish to emigrate may do so - with a very small number of exceptions for well founded reasons -, as long as they have the means necessary and a country willing to receive them through the usual and legal channels. - Reinforced implementation of the extraterritorial regulations established in Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act. After five years in which no new cases were processed under Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which establishes the rejection of entry visas into the United States for Cuban investors and their close relatives, in May, 2004, the Super Clubs hotel chain in Jamaica was ordered by the US Government to abandon its business in Cuba. Faced with the threat that the US would prevent the top officials of this private company and their relatives from entering the country, the entity decided to end the business transactions of one of its hotels in Cuba. The reason why the US put pressure on this Jamaican company, was due to a complaint made by a Cuban-born person residing in the United States, who claimed to be the owner of the-land-expropriated by the Cuban Revolution - on which the hotel that the Jamaican company was negotiating is built. As the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Dan Fisk publicly revealed, the United States is “actively investigating more than two dozen Helms-Burton Title IV visa sanction cases. The most recent Title IV trafficking judgment was passed in April. No visa sanctions were imposed because the Jamaican company (Super Club hotel chain) terminated its commercial involvement with the confiscated property in question. This was the first judgment in 5 years. (…)”. On the 8th of July, 2004, in the federal court of Miami, a family of Cuban descent brought a lawuit against the French tourist chain, Club Med, for building and running a five-star hotel between 1997 and 2003, at Varadero beach, on land that the family owned before the triumph of the Revolution. The lawuit was presented despite the fact that Club Med had sold the property the year before to a Spanish hotel company. The prosecutor pointed out that the lawuit was presented in Florida because Club Med has a big state in this city, including a hotel in Port St. Lucie, and that “Club Med cannot have business in Cuba and have these in a substantial fashion with Cuba’s communist regime” The blackmail is blatant and the logic small-minded. If a foreign company does business with the United States, the most important market in the world, it cannot have anything to do with Cuba. If this new lawuit succeeds in the Miami courts, it will serve to encourage the professed desire of the White House to apply the full power of the Helms-Burton Act, the extraterritorial regulations of which have as yet been only partially implemented, due to the fact that presidential decrees are announced every six months, limiting the implementation of Title III. - Threats against the incipient imports of food from the US. The matter of whether to further hinder the sale of agricultural products to Cuba, which was authorized at the end of 2001, following the two devastating hurricanes that swept the island, causing damage to the sum of almost 2 thousand million dollars, is currently being evaluated by the US Treasury Department. For months the George W. Bush administration has been reviewing the rules established with regards to the cash payments that the Cuban government makes to the US companies that sell food to the Island. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), said that it would disclose “new regulations shortly”, in relation to these payments. A bipartisan group of congress members, lead by Jo Ann Emerson, Missouri representative, sent a letter to the Treasury Department, stating that “there is no need for stricter requirements for sales to Cuba” and that “to request payment prior to the sending of goods would do away with all sales of agricultural products to Cuba” In an effort to preserve the emerging food exports to Cuba, 34 powerful, national agricultural organizations and export companies from the US, wrote a letter to President George W. Bush, dated the 8th of December, asking him “not to bring unnecessary and harmful changes with respect to the implementation of TSRA [law authorizing exports to Cuba]. Any change would threaten to close up an important market for US agricultural exporters” The signatories reminded President Bush that Cuba currently holds 22nd place in the list of buyers of agricultural products from the United States, and is capable of spending up to $400 million per year, they also pointed out, “this isn’t a market that we can afford to loose”. Among the important companies that signed this Letter were: American Farm Bureau Federation, Ag BioTech, American Meat Institute, National Foreign Trade Council, the shipping company Crowly Maritime, National Milk Producers Federation, National Turkey Association, US Dairy Export Council, US Wheat Associates and other nationally well-known producers of rice, wheat, chicken and dairy products, from states such as Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, North Dakota and South Dakota. The signatories of the petition opined “that obligatory advance payments in cash, which some officials and congresspeople who support a redoubling of the blockade interpret as obliging Cuba to pay before goods even leave US ports, contravene international trade regulations, violate TSRA statues and are more restrictive than any other export practice in the world” They also pointed out that the ‘reinterpretation of payments’ could result in the cargo being seized by US institutions and citizens that, backed by legal reports, demand compensation from the Cuban Government. “Neither US exporters nor Cuban buyers are in a position to accept this extraordinary legal risk”, the letter emphasized In this connection, the rabid anti-Cuban congresswoman Ileana Ros Lehtinen stated: “we will continue to bring pressure to bear on OFAC to have it ensure compliance with what the law establishes and oblige Fidel Castro to pay before receiving shipments”. - Absurd, politically swayed trials recommence to award arbitrary compensation, to the sum of millions of dollars, from Cuban funds frozen in the United States as well as other property and assets According to the copy of the Miami El Nuevo Herald, dated the 15th of November of last year, in the Miami-Dade Court of Justice, the American citizen, Janet Ray Weininger, ‘sued’ the Cuban president, Fidel Castro and the Cuban State for the murder of her father, Thomas ‘Pete’ Ray, who was brought down in the CIA plane that he was flying during the invasion of Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs), on the 19th of April, 1961. In the trial – unusual from the point of view of the timeframe standards of the US legal system - , the Miami-Dade judge, Ronald Greensick, found in favor of Ms. Ray in little over 48 hours, and ‘ordered’ the Cuban Government to pay 86.5 million dollars for what he called the ‘execution’ of her father. Ms. Janet Ray, who was only six years old when the event occurred, told vicious lies to support her lawuit, by virtue of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which allows victims of States that have been unilaterally and arbitrarily defined as being terrorist by the US Government – a list which includes Cuba - to sue them for damages. Since then, any legal claim against Cuba is responded to immediately by the US legal authorities, who award arbitrary compensation to the sum of millions of dollars. When Ms. Ray filed her lawuit in Miami, several legal experts said that the claim was flimsy. Even the Herald reported the opinion of David Abraham, a law professor at the University of Miami, who said that you couldn’t invade a foreign country and expect a warm welcome. Thomas Willard Ray – the father of the plaintiff - known as ‘Pete’, flew to Cuba as a mercenary to attack a foreign country. He was never imprisoned, nor was he attended to by any doctor for any type of injury, as was claimed. One of the chapters of the book, ‘The case of the Birmingham widows’, tells of the death of four pilots from the Alabama National Guard, in the early hours of the 19th of April, 1961, who were part of a CIA commando group. They flew over Cuban lines in five B-26 bombers that set off from the Happy Valley airport in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, covered with insignia of the Cuban Air Force in order to confuse Cuban troops and take them unaware. The American journalists explained how firstly the CIA and later the whole government continually lied to the families of the four dead pilots, assuring them that they had been killed in a terrible accident when their C-47 transport plane crashed into the sea. The authors mention the statements, among others, made by Robert Kennedy, Secretary of Justice and brother of the president of that time, who said in an interview, on the 21st of January, 1963, almost two years after the invasion, with David Kraslow from the Knite newspaper chain, that not one American had died during the Bay of Pigs invasion. For this reason, American authorities made no reference to the subject at all for 18 years, despite the fact that details of the plane shot down and the death of its two crew members had been available from the very beginning. It wasn’t until the end of 1979, under the Carter administration, that the US Government acknowledged the death of Mr. Ray, and on the 5th of December of this year his corpse was handed over to US authorities and to his young daughter, Janet Ray. Some time later, in April 1980, the Cuban magazine Verde Olivo, published, in its 16th edition of that year, the eyewitness account of Dr. José M. Miyar Barruecos, the current Secretary of the Cuban Council of State, in which he describes the CIA air operations in Playa Girón, with the help of photos he took himself. When recounting the events, Dr. Miyar recalled how, at dawn on the 19th of April 1961, a B-26 plane lost altitude during its second low-flying attack on a command post and on Cuban troops, and made an emergency landing in the middle of a sugarcane plantation, to a defensive barrage. Seconds later there was a huge explosion which burnt the back part of the plane. After searching among the smoldering and charred remains of the aircraft, no trace was found of its two pilots. Dr. Miyar Barruecos explained that various factors lead them to believe that the two pilots had had time to escape. Commander Fernández Mell, who led the search, ordered the troops to do everything in their power to capture them alive. This was not possible. One of the pilots, when discovered hidden near the small road from the mill, shot his 38 short barrel revolver, and was killed immediately by a burst of fire from an automatic rifle. When the other pilot was discovered, he tried to throw a hand grenade, and died instantly from several wounds to the chest and right eye. The latter was Thomas Willard Ray, whose corpse was officially claimed by the US Government 18 years later, at the request of his family. The other pilot was Frank Leo Baker. -Orchestration of propagandist shows as part of the strategy of anti-Cuban public diplomacy On assessing the anti-Cuban acts perpetrated by the Bush administration, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Daniel W. Fisk declared: “We also have stepped up our efforts to mobilize international diplomatic and public diplomacy efforts to increase international support for Cuban civil society and transition planning. We applaud such initiatives as the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba, led by former Czech President Vaclav Havel. (…)The resulting ‘Declaration of Prague’ called for the release of all political prisoners, and included harsh condemnations of the Castro regime. President Havel told the press, ‘Cuba is a giant prison’.” The way in which the work of the Commission on Human Rights has been manipulated in order to impose a sentence on Cuba, has fulfilled a very important role in carrying out said strategy. On the 16th of June, 2004, Michael Kozak, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told a congress subcommittee, “To support Cuban's dreams for democracy, the United States provides moral support as well as political support through continuing efforts in international fora such as the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.” He forgot to mention, of course, that this “moral and political support” was offered thanks to most sordid pressure and blackmail applied and used against CHR member countries. Daniel W. Fisk, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said in Miami, on the 9th of October, 2004, “We actively supported and lobbied for a resolution critical of Cuba's human rights record at the 2004 UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva”.’ Under instructions, and using funds invested by US authorities, the so-called ‘International Summit for Democracy in Cuba’ took place from the 17th to the 19th of September, 2004, in Prague, Czech Republic, under the supposed aegis of the self-titled International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC). The so-called committee was founded, with guidance from Washington, by Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic – a character who is always ready to lend his services in exchange for the handsome paycheck awarded by the Empire - in September 2003. When the meeting in Prague drew to an end, new anti-Cuban farces had been organized in other places, always following the same script and using funds handed over by the Bush Administration. On the 9th of November, 2004, the seminar entitled ‘The Transition from Communism: the Lessons Learned and the Changes Facing Cuba’, was held in Miami, publicly sponsored by the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies of the University of Miami (using federal funds) and the Czech Embassy in Washington. The anti-Cuban show that had been organized to take place on the 16th of November, 2004, at the premises of the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly, no less, and in the backdrop of the Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and/or Government in San José, failed spectacularly, due to the firm response of honest citizens of this country, who prevented this serious attack on the dignity of the Cuban people from taking place. Despite the tolerance and complicity of the Costa Rican Government, the so-called International Fora for Democracy in San José, Costa Rica was aborted due to a public outcry, when scarcely two speakers from the minority groups of political intriguers and anti-Cuban terrorists had taken the floor (See: Secret anti-Cuban meeting in Costa Rica, Speech by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, the 16th of November, 2004.) Who attended these events organized and financed by Washington? These meetings have called together corrupt politicians, ousted former governors, officials, agents and former agents on the payroll of the US special services, representatives of the anti-Cuban mob in Miami and renowned terrorists of Cuban descent, as well as ‘intellectuals’, whose minds have been hired by the Empire. For example, Carlos Alberto Montaner, who in 1963, joined a group chosen by the CIA and was trained in the field of intelligence in Fort Benning, USA, and has since then been working as a special services agent. Montaner defends the American blockade, which has been repeatedly condemned by the overwhelming majority of the international community, he also opposes foreign investment and promotes the international isolation of Cuba. The reason behind the ‘meetings’ in Prague, Miami and Costa Rica is to create the image of supposed international support of the anti-Cuban policy of the United States and to recreate its media war against the Cuban Revolution. The result of this type of meeting is always a document brimming with hate and threats against the Cuban people, which, of course, clearly supports Washington’s anti-Cuban policy. The ‘Prague Declaration’ was no different; it recommended that the pressure on and siege of Cuba be increased, the ‘help’ given to mercenaries of the anti-Cuban policy be stepped up and that the preservation of the sanctions that Aznar instigated to control the European Union's policy towards Cuba to suit the imperialist interests of Washington. In Prague, at the request of the Bush administration, Mr. Havel publicly called for the Cuban Government to be overthrown. James Cason, Head of the US Interests Section (USIS) in Havana, who commands the paid mercenaries of his government in Cuba, participated in the meetings in Prague and Miami. He was first speaker in the latter of the two. So as there are no doubts as to who is the true promoter and whose interests these initiatives serve, President George W. Bush sent a letter to the organizers of the seminar in Miami, in which he expressed his gratitude for the efforts made by the Czech republic and the former president, Vaclav Havel, to promote the ‘cause of democratization’ in Cuba. - Increase in the interfering statements, provocations and conspirational activities of the Head and several officials of the United States Interests Section in Havana The Bush administration uses its Interests Section in Havana as a forward position in its aggressive plans against Cuba. The current head, James Cason, has taken the work to undermine the aims that brought about the beginning of respective representation in Washington and Havana during the President Carter Administration, to new heights. The most recent episode in the escalation of bilateral aggression in the diplomatic field, was the public and inconceivable provocation that the USIS created when it hung propaganda in the garden of its premises ‘paying tribute’ to the 75 mercenaries justly sentenced by Cuban courts. This provocative act is the culmination of a long line of interfering and offensive acts, orchestrated by the Head and several officials of the United States Interests Section in Havana, between September and December of 2004, at the headquarters of this Section, as well as in their homes and in the backdrop of public diplomatic activities in other Embassies. The behavior of these American diplomatic officials infringes the regulations that govern the conduct of the representatives of a State, in connection with the institutions and law of the State in which they are accredited (See: Chronology of the provocative action of the USIS officials. September – December, in Cubadebate, the 20th of December, 2004.) Youth organizations and dozens of Cuban artists hung signs, murals, posters and drawings around the outside of the US diplomatic headquarters - their response to the attack against the dignity of the Cuba. They were artistically recreated, irrefutable graphic proof of the imperialist and fascist policies of the current Bush administration, of the brutal consequences of its criminal aggression against several countries around the world and of the mass torture carried out by their officers and soldiers in detention centers and concentration camps in various parts of the world. The Cuban people will defend at any price their rich history, the memory of their heroes and martyrs and national independence, something which has cost them many lives and sacrifices.
- Significant increase in the persecution of and imposition of fines on individuals, NGO’s and American and third country companies for traveling to Cuba or performing financial or commercial transactions with institutions or persons defined by the United States as Cuban During the course of 2004, a total of 77 companies, banking institutions and non-governmental organizations were fined for violating various regulations of the American blockade imposed on Cuba. The total number of fines imposed for the infringement of the blockade against Cuba, amounted to 1,262, 011 US dollars. If to this sum, the fines that a group of entities had to pay for violating the ‘sanctions’ imposed not only on Cuba, but also on other countries, excluding the famous fine of 100 million charged to the Swiss bank UBS, then the total sum would amount to 1,451,539 dollars. Of all the entities to receive fines, 11 are foreign companies or subsidiaries of American companies, all of which are located in third countries. In the information given above, at least 7 foreign countries are not mentioned, these include the airlines IBERIA, ALITALIA and Air Jamaica, DAEWOO and the Bank of China – to mention just a few - , whose affiliates in the United States were penalized for violating certain stipulations of the blockade against Cuba. Once again, the extraterritorial character of the measures of the blockade against Cuba is left in no doubt. Of the entities fined, 29 are companies and firms, 27 are banking institutions, 10 are non-governmental organizations and 11 are foreign companies and subsidiaries of American companies in third countries. Likewise in 2004, 316 citizens and residents of the United States were fined, to the total sum of 497,780 dollars, above all for failing to comply with the travel restrictions and for importing Cuban products. Refusing to supply information to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and holding a contract with a Cuban entity were also cited as violations. The total amount of fines imposed on entities and individuals by virtue of the stipulations of the genocidal blockade against Cuba, reaches almost 2 million dollars. At the beginning of September 2004, the Spanish airline, Iberia, revealed that it had paid a fine of 8 thousand dollars to the US Treasury, but denied that it had violated the blockade against Cuba. The events took place in 2000, when US authorities questioned Iberia for transporting Cuban tobacco in one of its planes, which stopped over in Miami on its journey to Central America. According to Iberia, the merchandise was from the Canary Islands and was being taken to a client in Central America. The fine of 20 thousand dollars (around 14,880 euros) which the US Treasury Department announced that it had imposed on the Spanish Bank, Santander, without disclosing details about the amount transferred or the identity of the recipient, was for making one transfer to a body which could be the Cuban Government, which was carried out in 2001 from its affiliate Santander Bank & Trust in the Bahamas (known as Santander Central Hispano Bank & Trust when the file was opened). This was the second Spanish company to be penalized in accordance with the Helms-Burton Act, following the change of government in Spain in March 2003. The US administration also decided to penalize DaimlerChrysler North American Holding Corp, because the former Mercedes-Benz company in Mexico sold vans to Cuba in 1999. The company was fined about 30 thousand dollars, the biggest fine to be imposed on a European company for trading with Cuba. On the 8th of July, the Treasury Department reported that the pharmaceutical company, Chiron Corporation, had been fined 168 500 dollars by the United States, when the firm revealed that a European subsidiary company had sold two types of child vaccinations to Cuba between 1999 and 2002. The Alpha Pharmaceutical Incorporated laboratories, located in Panama, also paid a fine of 198,700 dollars for doing business with the island. - Increase in the amount of visas denied to Cuban academics, scientists, artists, athletes and officials Over the last year the amount of visas denied Cuban artists, academics, scientists, athletes and officials has also increased. Hundreds of Cubans were deprived of the possibility to take part in American and international events held in the US. The American people were also denied their right to receive information and opinions from all sides, from enjoying the arts and benefiting from the Cuban scientific breakthroughs. Cuban musicians as talented as Ibrahím Ferrer and Manuel Galbán, writers such as Miguel Barnet and Eduardo Heras León, film and TV producers such as Gerardo Chijona and Lisette Vila, actresses such as Verónica Lynn, as well as a long list of important exponents of Cuban culture have been prevented from participating in presentations and events in the United States. Between May 2003 and April 2004, 53 representative of the culture sector waited in vain for their entry permits into the United States, while the reply given to the request of 215 artists, was a flat refusal. At this same time, 21 Cuban sport directors were also denied visas. At the end of September 2004, the Department of State refused to grant visas to the Cuban delegation comprising 64 university professors and academics that had been invited to participate in the annual meeting of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), which held a meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, from the 7th to the 9th of October of last year. This is the first time that the United States has denied a whole Cuban delegation visas to attend a conference held by this organization. The measures and policies that have been applied as regards travel permits for Cuba and visas for Cubans hark back to the darkest and most dismal stage of the ideological intolerance of the terrible McCarthyism, a phenomenon that until now was only remembered as something that happened a long time ago. Action of this kind reveals the falseness of the American rhetoric on freedom and human rights, and arbitrarily deprive the Cuban and American peoples from seeing and sharing the notable breakthroughs that they have made in these areas. -Increase in the presence and influence of anti-Cuban figures in Congress and the Executive, in the second term in office of the George Bush Administration The beginning of George W. Bush’s second term in office is characterized by the presence of anti-Cuban figures in Congress and holding important posts in the Government. The fact that Melquíades Martínez (Mel), the republican of Cuban descent, has been elected to the federal Senate by the state of Florida, Porter J. Goss, the republican congressman in Florida and CIA station chief in Miami during the 60´s, has been nominated as new Director of the CIA, and Carlos Gutiérrez, businessman of Cuban descents, has been named Secretary of Commerce, makes it quite clear that Bush will continue with his policy of anti-Cuban hostility and take it to new heights. Mel Martínez, based in Orlando, Florida, is the first member of the anti-Cuban mob to have a seat in the federal Senate, joining Capitol Hill the 3 republican congressmen for Florida and the democrat for New Jersey that comprise the Chamber of Representatives. Martínez, who is the most eminent member of the anti-Cuban mob in the first cabinet of the current President Bush, also worked in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As well as this, he was one of the co-founders of the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, designing the new strategy aimed at overthrowing the Cuban constitutional system. Mel Martínez has expressed his intention to work towards making the Bilateral Migration Accords between Cuba and the United States null and void. He aims to extend the right to apply for status of ‘refugee’ to Cubans picked up at sea and offer them the benefits of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996. This proposal would further encourage illegal emigration and trafficking in persons and would cause the tension surrounding bilateral migratory relations to increase. On meeting Condoleezza Rice - then National Security Adviser to the White House and new Secretary of State - at Capitol Hill, on the 4th of January 2005, after being sworn in as Senator, Mel Martínez told Ms. Rice, ‘we insist on the need to create a flying platform to broadcast to Cuba’. Martínez was referring to the use of a US military plane to illegally transmit radio and television signals to the island, using a program specially designed to promote destabilization, illegal emigration and the subversion of Cuban constitutional order. On the occasion of being sworn in as imperial senator, Martínez also met up with the former president of Panama, Mireya Moscoso, who was accompanied by Jorge Mas Santos, president of the Cuban-American National Foundation, the terrorist organization of Cuban origin. Not long before her term in office drew to an end, Ms. Moscoso pardoned 4 renowned terrorist of Cuban descent, led by Luis Posada Carriles, tried by the Panamanian Courts for planning a terrorist attack that would have taken place during a busy public attempt at the university, activity by the Cuban President Fidel Castro. Referring to the importance of Martínez’s presence in the Senate in terms of the impetus that it will give the anti-Cuban policy, the mobster Mas Santos stated, “Mel is a person with wide access to the White House and with the good idea of focusing the struggle within Cuba, of continuing to support the dissidents on the island”. A Florida newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, revealed that, ‘given what (Mel) Martínez thinks about Cuba and his close ties with the president, it is quite clear that the United States will not soften its policy towards Cuba under Bush.’ On the 29th of November, 2004, President Bush appointed the American of Cuban origin, Carlos Gutiérrez, as the new Secretary of Commerce. Gutiérrez, the president and chief executive of the transnational corporation Kellogg since 1999, who currently lives in Battle Creek (Michigan) emigrated to the United States in 1959, at the age of six. He has shown himself to be in favor of the Bush administration toughening its policy of hostility. Representatives of the anti-Cuban mob expressed their wholehearted support of the appointment of Gutiérrez, maintaining that the official backs the blockade. In June 2004, Gutiérrez donated 4 thousand dollars to the United States-Cuba Pro Democracy Political Action Committee, that oppose any change in the US policy of hostility against the Cuban people, according to a report that the group presented to the Federal Election Commission. The republican congresswoman, renowned anti-Cuban mobster, gave her public backing to the nomination of Gutiérrez.58 In his thank-you speech following the announcement made by the US President of his appointment as Secretary of Commerce, Gutiérrez referred to himself as a ‘political refugee’.59 In a speech confirming his appointment to the Senate Commerce Committee on the 5th of June 2005, he clearly expressed his support of the President’s (George W. Bush) policy towards Cuba, affirming that above all, he firmly believes in the aim of introducing democracy to Cuba, which is what this policy entails.60 He added that he was deeply worried about doing anything that could protract the current situation in Cuba61, denying that there was any possibility of relaxing the blockade on Cuba in the slightest. The appointment of Porter J. Goss as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could mean an important intensification in the undercover operations carried out by the American special services against Cuba. Goss, in his capacity as Republican representative of Florida, used to be the president of the Federal Chamber’s Committee on Intelligence, a hideout for groups of terrorist and extremists of the anti-Cuban mob. The new Director of the CIA has maintained close ties with the most adventurous, unscrupulous and violent members of the anti-Cuban mob in Miami for more than 40 years. In 1962, Goss joined the Special Operations Unit of the CIA and from the JM-WAVE station in Miami, which for years had hundreds of operations officers at its disposal, participated in the design, organization and direction of various attacks on Cuba, including the Playa Girón invasion (Bay of Pigs), Operation Mongoose and several plans to assassinate the then Cuban Prime Minister, Fidel Castro.62 Later, the Agency sent him to several intensive activity zones in Latin America and the Caribbean, were he continued to take part in operations aimed at isolating the Cuban Revolution and smothering the popular leftist movements that were spreading through the region at that time. On the 18th of May, 2002, Goss admitted to the Washington Post that he had participated in terrorist operations of the CIA mega station in Miami, JM-WAVE. At that time this operative center devoted its time to organizing and carrying out murders, starting fires in economic targets and public places, setting off bombs and spreading infections, as well as other terrorist acts against Cuba.63 In July 2002, he echoed the false accusation that Cuba was supposedly capable of producing biological weapons, in order to hinder the efforts of those requesting that the travel restrictions to Cuba be lifted. Goss’s professional history only serves to foretell a dangerous return to the policy of undercover operations against Cuba. Another element that points to a future increase in activity by those who wish to see the hostile policy against Cuba strengthen in 2005, is that the federal legislators of Cuban descent, lead by the mobster, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, announced at the beginning of last December, their intention to found a legislative group provisionally named the Democratic Cuba Group, aimed at opposing the Cuban Work Group, comprising legislators from both parties, which promotes changes in the anti-Cuban policy of the United States, whose objective is the gradual normalization of bilateral relations.64 Ros-Lehtinen said that the new congress group would try to cut US agricultural exports, prevent US banks from doing business with Cuba and even encourage the Bush administration to apply the most controversial stipulations of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which penalize foreign investors in Cuba. The appointment of the former National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, as Secretary of State, was also perceived by the representatives of the terrorist mob of Miami as a decisive contribution to the policy against Cuba. The mobster and congresswoman, Ross-Lehtin, described her as “a true believer in the anti-Castro cause”. -Aggressive and threatening statements against Cuba in 2004 On the 6th of January, 2004, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, among other lies, criticized Cuba for “supporting destabilizing elements within several democratic countries in America.” He took advantage of the occasion to add, in a clearly threatening tone: “Those who persist in destabilizing democratically elected governments by intervening in the internal affairs of other governments are playing with fire.” With complete cynicism and a defiant tone he added that: “his and other neighboring countries would be closely following the behavior of Cuban leader Fidel Castro in his ‘latest adventures.’” (See Editorial dated 8 January 2004 and published in Granma International). On the 8th of January, 2004, Colin Powell, the then secretary of State, repeated the unfounded accusations against Cuba, when he said that “Cuba has been trying to do everything possible to destabilize parts of the region”. The next day, Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser, spoke in similar terms, saying “Cuba continues (…) to stir up difficulties in other parts of the region. Two months ago, President Bush created a Commission to examine what the US government can do to stimulate the development of democracy in Cuba and prepare it for the day a post-Castro Cuba, which will be democratic, arrives”. On the 12th of January, 2004, President George W. Bush stressed, “dictatorship has no place in the Americas. We must all work for a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba”. On the 16th of January, 2004, during a seminar on USAID’s so-called Cuba Transition Project, Roger Noriega affirmed that the Bush administration was willing to cooperate “with international organizations and keeping the multilateral community focused on Castro's continued human rights abuses”. He thus confirmed this administration’s decision to continue manipulating the work of bodies like the Commission on Human Rights to serve the United States’ policy of hostility towards Cuba. John Bolton, former Under Secretary of State for Weapons Control and International Security, declared, “Cuba's threat to our security often has been underplayed.” Addressing the House of Representatives’ Committee on International Relations in March, 2004, he also underscored the singularity of the threat posed by Cuba — a mere 90 miles away from US continental territory — and its “has long been a violator of human rights, earning it a place on the State Department’s list of state-sponsors of terrorism”. He added, “The Administration believes that Cuba remains a terrorist and biological weapons threat to the United States”. State Department officials declared that these statements were backed by the intelligence community. On the 30th of March, unable to respond to the facts and arguments presented by Cuba which discredited his accusations, Bolton stated, “Cuba remains a terrorist and [biological weapons] threat to the United States.” On the 6th of May, 2004, President Bush repeated his “liberation of the Cuban people” diatribe, saying that “the aim of the measures —referring to the new anti-Cuban measures announced that day — is “to identify ways to hasten the arrival of that day.” Referring to these measures, anti-Cuban congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen expressed, “the new pressure brought to bear on Castro’s economy dwindles its financial resources”. She thanked President Bush for “the leadership shown in ensuring that democracy and freedom are closer than ever for Cuba.65 Anti-Cuban congressman and mobster Lincoln Díaz-Balart called President George W. Bush “the best friend of the Cuban cause that has ever passed through the White House”. He also thanked Bush for implementing these regulations — referring to the new anti-Cuban measures announced on the 6th of May, 2004 — which significantly step up the embargo on the Cuban tyranny”.66 On the 16th of July, 2004, President Bush once again stepped up his “democratizing” rhetoric addressing the Cuban people, saying that his administration was working “toward a comprehensive solution of this problem: The rapid, peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. We have put a strategy in place to hasten the day when no Cuban child is exploited to finance a failed revolution and every Cuban citizen will live in freedom.” Vice-president Richard Cheney also publicly expressed his support for a redoubling of anti-Cuban hostility and aggression. On the 7th of October, 2004, he stated that President Bush “approves the restrictions on trips and remittances imposed on Cuba” and acknowledged that there were efforts in Congress to prohibit or postpone the implementation of these restrictions, but that “the president approves them and will not let anything interfere in the matter of Cuba during his term”. On the 31st of October, 2004, President George W. Bush resorted to his anti-Cuban “liberation” rhetoric again, making significantly more serious threats this time around. He stated that he strongly believed that “the people of Cuba should be free from the tyrant” and added he would continue to “bring pressure to bear on the tyrant in the next four years, because freedom is the Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world”.67 Former Secretary of State Colin Powell recently summarized the essence of the policy against Cuba. When asked why Cuba wasn’t “liberated” as Iraq was, he answered “that military options are not always used immediately”. He explained these (referring to military actions) were preceded by other instruments: “isolation, sanctions, pressures, economic activity,” although he made it clear that “sometimes there is no other appropriate solution other than the use of military force.” On the 22nd of November, 2004, El Miami Herald published declarations by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld under the headline of “U.S. Leads the World Towards Peace, Freedom and Democracy”. With respect to Cuba, Rumsfeld stated that it was under “a dictatorship whose last days may yet to be written.” Lies and threats have sustained and guided the anti-Cuban declarations of the Bush administration’s main figures in 2004. An objective analysis of the program announced by and the behavior of this administration in the first weeks of its second term reveal that the challenges and dangers in store for the independence, self-determination and peace of the Cuban people will be even greater in 2005. Continuation and redoubling of the anti-Cuban policy of hostility in George W. Bush’s second term Two events which took place immediately after his reelection tell us we can expect the continuation and even the redoubling of the anti-Cuban policy of hostility during President George W. Bush’s second term. The first was the publication of a press notice entitled “Cuba: Human Rights Situation”, presented on 4 November 2004 by State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher. As usual, the press notice spreads lies and slanders about Cuba, accusing it of supposed human rights violations and of “persecuting” “independent civil society activists”; this is how it refers to the just sentencing of various mercenaries carrying out the US’ anti-Cuban policy (See Declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Granma Internacional newspaper, dated 6th of November, 2004). In an article published on the 5th of January, 2005 in New York’s La Prensa On Line newspaper, Luis Ortega, a Cuban-born journalist who considers himself an exile, discredits the United States’ hackneyed claims that Cuba has incarcerated independent activists and dissidents. Referring to a group of these who were released last year on probation when they had only just begun to serve their sentences, the New York columnist wrote: “(…) they are not heroes. They are paid agents. They do not represent a just and noble cause that demands sacrifice, but are rather employees of a foreign government used for publicity. They have the full attention of all the US press, radio and television, with Washington’s blessing. (…) Not one legitimate opposition movement, excluded from Washington’s payroll, independent and willing to confront the regime, has emerged in Cuba in 46 years. Abroad, anti-Castroism has become a succulent business that has left no few millionaires in its wake (…)”.68 After several visits to Cuba, US filmmaker Oliver Stone —internationally renowned for his political objectivity and sharpness — also offered a vision of Cuba’s human rights situation and so-called “dissidents” which contradicts Washington’s. During a press conference at Spain’s San Sebastián Film Festival last September, he stated: “In Cuba, I observed an openness and freedom that I had not found in any other country in the region, the Caribbean or Central America. I have met many world leaders in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, but I have never seen the kind of spontaneous affection for a leader expressed on the streets as I have seen in Cuba towards Fidel." The second anti-Cuban gesture which immediately followed Bush’s reelection was the letter, signed by the US President, sent to the organizers of the anti-Cuban seminar held in Miami at the beginning of November with the support and financing of Washington authorities. In his letter, the US leader wrote that there was no doubt about the fact that “the eleven million Cubans who live under a brutal dictatorship wish to live in freedom, as ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe started to do so one day at the end of the previous century.”69 Miami’s anti-Cuban terrorist mob met Bush’s reelection with euphoria and enthusiasm, as it foreshadows the continuation and redoubling of this republican administration’s anti-Cuban policy. A number of the main anti-Cuban spokespeople assure us of this. The anti-Cuban congressman and mobster Lincoln Díaz Balart affirmed that “these elections had closed off all roads for Castro.” 70 One of the directors of the terrorist Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), Camila Ruiz, declared they were very happy to be able to continue working in Bush’s administration to bring about democratic change in Cuba.71 Ninoska Pérez Castellón, director of the ultra-reactionary and aggressive Council for Cuba’s Freedom, declared she believed that during the next four years in the White House, Bush would carry through with his promise to hasten the end of Cuban President Fidel Castro’s dictatorship, and to be the ally of the Cuban people to help it obtain its freedom”.72 The White House’s paid mercenaries in Cuba also wrote to congratulate the US leader and made declarations in support of his new term in office. Thus they betrayed their people once again. A military action against Cuba is a clear and present danger The ‘Call to the World Conscience’ made in Mexico in April 2003 and read at Havana’s José Martí Revolution Square on 1 May 2003 by Mexican researcher and sociologist Pablo González Casanova before more than a million Cubans, important figures, artists, intellectuals, academicians and political scientists from all latitudes, stated that “a harsh campaign against a Latin American nation is underway today. The harassment to which Cuba is subjected could become the pretext for an invasion. Against this, we hold up the universal principles of national sovereignty, of respect for territorial integrity and the right to self-determination, essential to the just co-existence of nations”. Nobel Prize winners Rigoberta Menchú, Nadine Gordimer, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Gabriel García Márquez and other innumerable figures, including Mario Benedetti, Ernesto Cardenal, Oscar Niemeyer, Harry Bellafonte and Danny Glover, joined in this call. In May 2003, the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition headquartered in the United States also made an emergency call in a show of solidarity with Cuba, addressing the US and world anti-war and pro-peace movement In its call, A.N.S.W.E.R underscored the fact that “a series of events have taken place in past weeks with respect to relations between the United States and Cuba. The Bush administration has taken its policy of hostility toward Cuba to a new level. There are more and more signs indicating that Bush is trying to spark off a new crisis and possibly a war against Cuba” (See http://www.internationalanswer.org). On the 21st of November, 2004, the more than 120 representatives of solidarity and friendship organizations from 21 countries who participated in the European-Cuban Solidarity Meeting held in Luxembourg issued a final declaration, affirming that: “Cuba’s independence and all of the social achievements of its society are in danger. (…) the danger is evident.”. During his reelection campaign, George W. Bush stated: “Just like Afghanistan and Iraq, I am worried about Cuba”, adding that he was committed to see an end to the ‘Castro regime’”. The undersigned made a call to the whole world to defend Cuba against any kind of aggression and reaffirmed their continued solidarity with and support for the Cuban people.73 On the 22nd of May, 2004, prominent businessmen, politicians, former high officials, intellectuals and other US figures belonging to the Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba wrote an open letter to George W. Bush requesting the lifting of restrictions on trips and the sale of food and medicine to Cuba. The undersigned included the multimillionaire banker David Rockefeller, Reagan administration National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci, Nixon administration ex CIA Director and Secretary for Defense James Schlesinger and filmmakers Oliver Stone and Francis Ford Coppola, among others.74 On the 23rd of June last year, the Spanish Congress’ Foreign Affairs Commission approved a proposal condemning the blockade policies and the recent measures adopted by the US to redouble these, a proposal backed by all parties save the right-wing Partido Popular (Popular Party).75 Britain’s House of Commons approved a joint declaration — with 79 % of votes in favor — condemning President’s Bush’s current policy towards the Cuban Government and an eventual military action against the Cuban population. Peter Hain, House of Commons chairman, said: “I am absolutely opposed to military action being taken against Cuba and also opposed to the continuing blockade of Cuba by the United States. I visited Cuba two years ago and was very impressed with the social advances that have been made despite all the pressure from the US.”76 Participants in the so-called Third National Summit on Cuba held in the University of Tampa in October, where US companies and business leaders met to analyze relations between the US and Cuba, criticized the United States’ traditional policy towards Cuba and spoke in favor of lifting trade and travel restrictions on Cuba.77 The Center for International Policy, Washington-based independent academic fora, published a half-page ad in the El Nuevo Herald newspaper showing a photo of Bush with the following headline: “One man canceled Christmas in Cuba, and it wasn’t Fidel Castro”. The ad includes a text inviting citizens to write Senator Mel Martínez and other politicians to tell them that relatives of Cuban-Americans in Cuba should not have to spend Christmas alone and to ask them to lift the travel ban on Cuba.78 A non-exhaustive inventory of some of the Bush administration’s main aggressive actions against and declarations about Cuba confirms — as our government has repeatedly denounced — that anti-Cuban hostility is still on the rise and that one cannot discount the possibility that the United States will undertake a direct military action to restore a neocolonial regime in Cuba. No US government leader or spokesperson has excluded the possibility of using military force against Cuba when asked directly about the matter. On the contrary, they repeatedly bring up circumstantial or contingent factors to momentarily evade the subject. No past US administration had reached such anti-Cuban extremes as this one, clearly telling us that the neoconservative and fascist-minded groups currently wielding power in the United States have not set aside the option of using military force to destroy the Cuban Revolution. In contrast to the US government’s growing provocations and escalating aggression towards Cuba, the Cuban people and Government have systematically demonstrated their determination and will to work towards improving bilateral relations between both countries and the historic bond of friendship which unite our peoples. The Cuban people will never give up its independence, nor its ideals of freedom, solidarity and social justice. As has always occurred since the triumph of the Revolution, every illegal act of aggression by the United States will meet with a firm and balanced response congruous with the rights of the Cuban people and Government. 2005. The US Interest Section in Cuba: headquarter of the counterrevolution. The US Interest Section (USIS) was created under President Carter’s administration in 1977, as a communication channel between both governments and to attend to Consular matters of mutual interest. However the situation has ever since changed significantly and today the USIS has become a lair of the counterrevolution, as denounced by President Fidel Castro in 2006. As usual, and against its original purposes, the US Interest Section has maintained its traditional activities against Cuba. As part of that policy, it continued using the diplomatic vouch to introduce means to support of the internal counterrevolution as evidenced with the confiscation of three diplomatic vouches sent to the the USIS by the US-based “Center for a Free Cuba”, led by former CIA agent and rabid enemy of the Cuban Revolution, Frank Calzón, at “José Martí” International Airport in August 15. In 2005, James Cason wrapped up his term at the head of the USIS. During his stay in Cuba, Cason stood in open interference in the domestic affairs of the country, aggressions, provocations, deliberate sponsoring of activities against the government, the State and the constitutional order of the country, as well as a total lack of respect and observance of the international law ruling the protocol of the foreign officials and diplomatic representation in the countries where they are accredited. Among his closing activities in Cuba, a Cason in retreat provided verbal and logistic support for the maneuver orchestrated in our country by US paid mercenaries to hold an allegedly “Assembly for the Promotion of the Civil Society”. Not only did Cason fund and set the rules of the meeting; in May 20 and 21, he was involved in the unfolding of this media show, in the company of Francisco Saínz, head of the USIS Economic and Political Office. In this context, they “gave” the participants a recorded message by President Bush urging the recruits of the US anti-Cuban policy to “continue their cause”. It was obvious once again, the clear subordination of the alleged Cuban dissidence to the imperial agents of Washington. Likewise, the head of the USIS went on with his traditional “diplomatic a75ctivities”, inviting any anti-Cuban mercenary he could recruit during his term in office. Among those “awardees” were the USIS hirelings Oswaldo Payá, Marta Beatriz Roque, Jorge Olivera, Carmelo Díaz Fernández, Miguel Valdés Tamayo, Roberto de Miranda, Orlando Fiundora Álvarez, Vladimiro Roca, Félix Bonne, Miguel Sigler Amaya, René Gómez Manzano and Margarito Broche, just to mention some. As part of their constant provocations, on the 4th of July in his residency, Mr. Cason unveiled a 9-meter tall metal replica of the Statue of Liberty, with a number 75 in the torch, as a reminder of the Cuban recruits taken to court in 2003. Cason himself, at the end of his term in Cuba, admitted in an interview with AP, that he “was as appropriately aggressive as he could”. Once his term came to an end, the new head of the USIS, Michael Parmly, arrived in Cuba in September 15. A month after his arrival, at his own request, Mr. Parmly paid a visit to the Foreign Ministry in October 14. In this contact the new Head of the Interest Section explained that he had three priorities in his mission: 1) To check the good performance of the Office, 2) Enhance the contacts with the Cuban people; and 3) to explore the possibilities to advance in issues of common interests for both governments should common grounds be found. However, shortly afterwards, the Head of the USIS started to make increasingly aggressive statements. Following are some of the most significant examples: “Cuba looks forward to changing and the change is underway (…) We are here to support you and assist you in any way possible (…) Any country coming out of decades of repression needs foreign assistance”.75 “Cuba is lagging behind in the global march toward democracy and more respect for human rights (…) It support itself by isolating Cubans from the rest of the world, keeping them artificially impoverished and dependent of a State that demands unquestionable obedience, and terrorizing those who challenge the slanders of the regime…76”. “I don’t know when the change will take place. Only there is a change underway”. And threateningly added: “Any successful political process of transition involves penal aspects. It is important that people know they are becoming aware of the felonies of those who have committed despicable crimes”. 77 “I will not try to set a deadline, but I see plenty of signs of frustration, even disappointment. When will the rubber break? It will depend on the Cubans” (…) “the rebellion will spread out like powder in the streets”. 78 Finally, last January 2006, the USIS embarked on a new escalade in its provocations against our country. A light billboard was installed in one of the upper floors of the headquarter of the USIS allegedly to “convey messages to the Cuban people”. Actually, it is an unprecedented act of provocation. What diplomatic representation of a country that respects both international law and sovereignty, that launches such an aggression? How dares he claim an alleged right to transmit political and counterrevolutionary messages in a foreign state? The government that repressed courageous Cindy Sheehan just to show her message of peace during President Bush’s statement on the 2006 State of the Union. Bush’s Plan to Annex Cuba - Support to the Plan and measures to implement it. The annexation plan, officially approved in May 6 2004 under the euphemistic title of “Report of the Commission of an Assistance to a Free Cuba”, still had the support of the US Executive office through explicit statements. Moreover, concrete steps were taken to speed up its implementation in 2005. On 18th of January, Condoleezza Rice, ensured in her confirmation address as Secretary of State at the Committee of Foreign Relations of the Senate, that she would pay close attention to the implementation of the recommendation of the “Commission for a Free Cuba”. At a meeting at the Western Hemisphere Sub-committee in March 9, the then Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, stressed that the recommendations of the “Commission for a Free Cuba” were under implementation and that “the regime is under pressure like never before”, to add that they would continue “preparing and supporting the pacific transition to democracy”. On 2nd of June, the counterrevolutionary radio station “Radio Martí” reported that the Head of the Cuban Affairs Office at the State Department, Kevin Whitaker expressed his satisfaction for the work of the “Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba” and pointed out significant progress in the already set tasks and more are programmed for the future. He also stressed that since August 2004 weekly flights had been used in TV broadcasts, the number of American visiting Cuba had dropped and remittances-related incomes, shrunk in almost 60%. He said that they are working out the appointment of a coordinator to assist in the six tasks comprised in Chapter I of the afore mentioned Commission. On 27th of July, during the audience “Diplomacy in Latin America”, at the Sub-committee for the Western Hemisphere of the Foreign Relations Committee of the House, the then Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Roger Noriega, made emphasis in the allocation of 8.9 million USD for 2005 and 15 million USD for 2006, to implement the recommendations of the Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba. He stated that this “assistance” would be aimed at guaranteeing a transition to democracy and not a succession as the Cuban “regimen” is planning. In December, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, chaired a meeting of the Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba aimed at identifying new measures to hasten the “change of regime” in the island. Rice heralded that in May 2006, the Commission will prepare a second report for President Bush “with updated recommendations to hasten democracy and an interagency strategic plan of to help a Cuban-led transition”. According to the media, attendants to the meeting were Secretary of Housing, Trade, Homeland Security and Treasure, as well as the President’s Advisor for National Security and the USAID Administrator, all members of the Commission. Representative Linclon Días Balart considered the decision as a “very positive one” and Representative Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, suggested that “the Commission could seek ways to generate more international support for the dissidence opposing the Cuban leader Fidel Castro”. The Head of the USIS Michael Parmly said the “report on transition is exactly what we can do to help and what we can offer”. - American Proconsul for Cuba. As part of the announced measures in the annexationist plans, on July 28 Secretary of State announced the appointment of Caleb McCarry, Republican advisor at the International Relations House Committee, as “Cuban Transition Coordinator”. Since his “rise to power”, the imperial proconsul for Cuba started to make a number of statements in accordance with his job. On 1st of October, the Huston Chronicle reproduced his statements saying: “we seek to support an authentic transition toward political freedoms for the Cuban people”. The 27 of the same month in Madrid, during a seminar on “transition” in Cuba, he stated: “I think all democratic governmens can coincide in what Cuba needs is a genuine transition to political and economic freedom and I thnk we can all work together in this direction. The United States is promoting and proposing our allies to work together in the support of the independence of the Cuban society”. And added: “we are prepared to provide the specific assistance that we believe a transitional government may need, as well as the humanitarian assistance, the support to the educational system, the health system, the basic legal or administrative reforms”. During October’s second fortnight, McCarry embarked on a 10-day European tour, to lobby for international suppor for President Bush’s annexationist plan. It started off by visiting the Czech Republic, where he was welcomed by the Foreign Ministry and held meetings with US-financed counterrevolutionary, Anti-Cuban organizations. On 7th and 8th of November, the United States held the conference “Common objectives, different strategies?. Options for a transatlantic Agenda on Cuba”. In Brussels, Belgium, sponsored by Freedom House and financed by USAID. Attending the meeting were proconsul McCarry and the director of USAID’s Cuba Program, David Mutcheler, the latter seeking to directly gain support for Bush’s anti-Cuban project, by offering generous money to mercenary organizations at the service of Washington’s imperial policy, such as the Czech People in Need. The US delegation was adamant in its view that “transition in Cuba should not be natural but hastened, even with the use of force”. McCarry, on the one hand, stated that “the moment had come for a change in Cuba and until this happens, the United States will not deal with that government”. On the 27, AZCentral from Arizona, quoted McCarry’s words: “we hope the Cuban people can free themselves from dictatorship as soon as possible. We believe that the moment has come for the change in Cuba”. The report also credited the following words to the proconsul for the annexation of Cuba: “we should not feel happy with a successor within the dictatorship. Transition is underway in Cubans’ minds. They are thinking of their future and many think of a different future”. - OFAC: a watchdog of the policy of sanctions and restrictions against Cuba. As part of the reinforcement of the policy of sanctions and economic restrictions against Cuba the US government has ordered its Office of Foreign Assets Control to reinforce its control over all financial, commercial and economic activities in general, to or from Cuba. This Office set off a real witch hunting and imposed a policy of terror, to ensure the full pursuit of Cuban Assets. In 2005, the US government issued new prohibitions and raised new obstacles to US agricultural sales to Cuba as well as to the travels of US citizens and institutions to Cuba. - Restrictions to the sales of agricultural commodities to Cuba As it is known, after the devastating strike of hurricane Michelle, in December 2001, the US Congress authorized the sales of agro products to Cuba. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to purchase those commodities. On 8th of February, OFAC spokeswoman Molly Millerwise, in reference to the sales of agro products to Cuba, stated that: “Our aim is to make clear the policy set by the law, we are not going to issue new licenses”. However, only two weeks later, on 22nd of February, OFAC itself announced a new interpretation of the concept of “cash payment in advance” of Cuba’s medical and agro products purchases from the United States, which determined that this concept means the cash payment before the products are shipped. Reactions followed straight away, both in Congress and in the private sector. The Next day, senators Pat Roberts, Byron Dorgan, Charles Grassley and Mex Baucus made statements against OFAC’s readjustment of the payment procedures. Baucus replied he could block nominations for the Treasury Department, while the rest of the senators pointed out that the measures was a sly attempt to choke off sales to Cuba, which would affect the US producers and the Cuban people. Thirty three agricultural enterprises and associations sent a letter to OFAC Director, denouncing the negative impact of the new regulation for cash in advance payment and asking for an exemption in the implementation of this measure for contracts signed before February 22nd . in Cuba, ALIMPORT issued a statement on the new OFAC regulations, stressing that they drift from the current practice in this kind of commercial operations and that they represented an escalation aimed at thwarting food sales, already subject to restrictions. Uncontrolled resistance to the measure went into the US Congress with several attempts at invalidating the new OFAC’s measure. In June 21, the Appropriation Committee passed Representative Jo Ann Emerson’ amendment to the “Transportation, Treasury and Housing Appropriation Act 2006, prohibiting the use of funds to administer or implement OFAC’s measure. Nonetheless, on 14th of November, the Conference Committee that conciliated the afore mentioned Appropriation Act, crossed out the language favoring the sales of agro products to Cuba which had been previously adopted. OFAC’s new interpretation was ready for implementation. Similarly, OFAC preserved its habitual hunting and punishments against those daring to trade with Cuba. For instance, in October 12, OFAC announced that Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) had been fined with 13.750 USD for violations to the blockade regulation against Cuba, allegedly committed between February and March 2000. According to OFAC, Finora Canada Ltd., a Canada-based ADM subsidiary allegedly signed contracts with a Cuban enterprise and made a lot of export transactions. Despite the unjust and unequal unidirectional and restricted economic links between Cuba and the United States, the US government is committed to blocking these efforts. In this sense, OFAC efficiently and shamefully carries out three functions: it sets new regulations to travels or reinforces the existing ones, applies similar pressures on people or institution intending to travel to Cuba and finally it punishes those who dare cross the Florida Strait to travel to Cuba without duly authorization. Following its frequent re-interpretations, OFAC tightened the knot of the current restrictions on the travels to Cuba last January. According to its latest “vision”, American citizens cannot participate in meetings in our country, even if they are sponsored and arranged by US-based United Nations, unless they can be granted a special license. Parallel, OFAC continued exerting pressure to “convince” people and institutions not to travel to Cuba. On 30th of March, they sent a letter to U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange urging to “cease and abstain from” co-sponsoring, promoting and arranging the visit to Cuba of the US delegation was to participate in IV Hemispheric Meeting of Fight against FTAA and May Day Activities. In their letter, OFAC also demanded a detailed list with names and addresses of the members of the delegation to be submitted in 20 days. Religion-related travels have also been directly affected by OFAC’s new restrictions. On 31st of May, OFAC enforced new regulations to grant licenses to US organization traveling to Cuba for religious motivations. According to these regulations, from now on, groups will not exceed 25 members, who can travel only once every three months with licenses valid for only one year. OFAC also retains the prerogative of authorizing licenses for larger groups and longer stays on the bases of a case-by-case analysis. On the other hand, on 7th of April, we learned of an OFAC’s circular to organizations with licenses to travel to Cuba for religious purposes, saying that alleged “violations of religious licenses” are under scrutiny, which would lead to measures such as the suspension or revocation of such licenses and administrative fines or legal sanctions. Similar pressures have been exerted on about 200 members of the Venceremos Brigade and Pastors for Peace, which were sent letters requesting information on their latest travels to Cuba. These letters are the first step in a process that could lead to fines of about 1.5 million dollars. Additionally, and as complement of OFAC’s work in this regard, the US legislative thwarted or rejected the attempts at totally or partially lifting restriction to travel to Cuba, comprised in the complex web of the legislation endorsing the economic warfare against our country. Four amendments were introduced in the House regarding travels to Cuba, the “Transportation, Treasury and Housing Appropriation Act 2006”. Rep. Barbara Lee’s amendment to prohibit use of funds in the bill to enforce regulations preventing travel to Cuba by academic institutions, was beat by 233 to 187 votes, Jeff Flake’s amendment to prohibit use of funds in the bill to enforce regulations preventing travel to Cuba for religious purposes, was removed by Flake due to the opposition it met; Jim Davis’s amendment to prohibit use of funds in the bill to enforce regulations preventing family travels to Cuba, was defeated by 211 to 208 votes; and Flake’s amendment to prohibit use of funds in the bill to enforce regulations preventing travels to Cuba by members of the US Armed Forces, was ruled out on account of an objection during procedures. Summarizing, as a result of the general policy of prohibitions of travels to Cuba, 487 American citizens were penalized for violations to the travel regulations encompassed in the blockade. Fines amounted paid by US organizations and nationals in 2005 because of the blockade amounted to 573,969,26 USD. - There is always an imperialist and revegeful hatred against the Cuban people in the discourse of those representing Washington´s power. Offensive and threatening references against Cuba and its leaders are top priority in the US administration’s agenda today. During 2005, senators or executive officers aired insults and threats against our country. Moreover, the string of offences reached its peak with statements President George W. Bush himself, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the executive. - Statements by President Bush and other executive members On 8th of December, the European press reproduced President Bush’s statements during the presentation of letters of the Czech Ambassador to the United States, Pert Kolar, in which he praised the “courage and decision of the [Czech Republic] in the effort to support the Cuban people’s dream of living in a free and prosperous country”. He further expressed that “he hoped that the effort would continue”. During his Latin American tour in March, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that “Cuba cannot be considered a free democracy” (…) “it is very misfortunate for the Cuban people because it is the people who suffer and take the blames”. On 18th of January, at her confirmation hearing as Secretary of State-designate, at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Condoleezza Rice called Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Zimbabwe “outposts of tyranny” and “fear societies”. Likewise during Caleb McCarry designation as “Coordinator for the Cuba Transition Coordinator”, she stated: “The United States is going to hasten the coming of the day when a free Cuba is no longer a dream, but a reality. (…) And we will not rest until this hemisphere is the best example of a hemisphere united in freedom and democracy. We could only achieve it if having a free Cuba¨ On 6th of February, the then Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega said to a Spanish-speaking TV that “Fidel Castro is a pain in the neck for democracy, for the Cuban people. But pacific transition is already underway (…) President Bush has spoken about the strength of freedom, that is irresistible and the message has reached Cuba (…) a dramatic transition has begun and we must continue with our support”. During her presentation at Hudson Institute on 20th of June, Paula Dobriansky , under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, mentioned Cuba as an example of an “outpost of tyranny”. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, stated early in February, following the suspension of sanctions by the EU, that “they remain worry for the suspension of measures without accomplishing the purposes for which they were enforced (…) a fruitful dialogue with the Cuban regimen is not possible (…) We believe that pressure is the best way to ensure changes in Cuba. Yet, we shall continue working with the Europeans to promote human rights in Cuba and the democratic opposition”. In addition, last March the State Department alternate spokesman, Adam Ereli issued a press release on the occasion of the second year of arrest of the 75 mercenaries at the US service. The document renews the United States’ stances on the topic and reaffirms the Administration’s commitment to the accomplishment of a “quick and pacific transition to democracy in Cuba and the support to all Cubans fighting to obtain it”. - Aggressive statements by members of the legislative On 28th of January, Senator Mel Martínez said to the Tampa Tribune that Cuban oil prospection operation in the Gulf of Mexico “could be a potential threat of pollution for the coasts of Florida”. And added that “we have been very watchful in Florida to preserve the primitive nature of our coast line by not allowing oil prospecting. It is a problem when a neighboring state does it”. Martinez strikes again against Cuba during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relation Committee on the budget allocation for the Foreign Relations for 2006, when he expressed his satisfaction with the Administration’s purpose of “pursuing democracy and freedom whenever possible” and his wish that the “enslaved Cuban people learn of this commitment of “promoting democracy through the mass media”. Anti-Cuban mobster Congress people, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario and Lincoln Díaz Balart committed themselves to the promotion and their support to the mercenary meeting orchestrated by the USIS in Havana under the name of “Assembly for the Promotion of the Civil Society”, considered a “massive meeting of the dissident movement”. Lincoln Díaz-Balart said we “are in contact with Congress people and we are going to launch a worldwide campaign that shall run until May 20th”. On 6th of June, several newspapers reported statements by representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart on the meeting with Condoleezza Rice. Ros-Lehtinen stressed that Rice had ascertained her “her wish to continue isolating Fidel”, and that “the movements to help Castro and those who engaged in trade supported by several countries, are not walking on the right avenue. The right avenue is international pressure to isolate the dictator”. Díaz-Balart, on the other hand, pointed out that the meeting also addressed the importance to have the whole hemisphere “do the necessary to restore democracy where it does not exist. For 46 years Cuba has been ruled by an illegitimate and illegal government and unfortunately this hemisphere, with the US exception, treats the Cuban people as if it was in another galaxy and that is not adequate”. On 9th of September, at the offer of our country to the victims of hurricane Katrina, these three Miami anti-Cuban mobster congress people, in a press release, stated: “We strongly support the Administration’s decision of rejecting the so called “offer” from Fidel Castro’s regime with respect to the tragedy the people of the United States in the States of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are living through (…) Castro’s offer is simply a despicable demagogic maneuver”. These words show the hatred these anti-Cuban mobster has heaped up against our people and against all poor and needed of the world. They can go as far as rejecting the solidary assistance and abandon the victims of such a devastating natural catastrophe to their luck, so long as not to acknowledge Cuba’s generosity and humanism. It was not the United States the first and only country that the Cuban people and government offer assistance. The Cuban Revolution treasures a record of assistance to other countries in these 47 years and it leaves no room for doubt on the real intentions of this offer. - Attempts to isolate Cuba at international bodies. In their interest in discrediting Cuba’s work and prestige at international bodies, the US government has issued renewed statements regarding Cuba’s role in these forums. In February, the Spokesman for the State Department Press Office, Tom Casey, in reference to the Cuban election to be member of the HRC Panel of Situations: “the United States believes that countries violating human rights of their citizens must not be eligible to monitor other countries’ behavior”. In March, Radio “Martí” reported statements by the Head of the State Department’s Cuban Affairs Office Head, Kevin Whitaker, who said: “we are considering participating this year at the HRC in Geneva to speak about the human rights violations in Cuba and make sure that the information is known. We will make our best efforts to advance the situation of the opposition inside Cuba. In May, during a visit to the European Union headquarters, the Deputy Minister of State, Robert Zoellick, stated that he doubted the effectiveness of the “new policy of opening of the EU to Cuba” and advised to “focus the efforts on the future” and thanked “the support of the European countries” to their attempts at promoting a resolution against Cuba at the HRC. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s statements added to the support to anti-Cuban campaign at the Human Rights Commission. Her words about the election of Cuba for the Board of Governors of the AEIO were published October 3 in The Miami Herald. Ros-Lehtinen said: “granting such a echelon to rogue states, once again questions the credibility of the United Nations. Appointing systematic violators to the AEIO Council is like letting a fox walk into a henhouse”. - Large amounts of Money for the domestic counter-revolution The Interest Section guarantees generous monetary support for the paid mercenaries of the US anti-Cuban policy. The money, though coming from a basic source – public and secret entries for anti-Cuban activities of the US budget- is channeled through the most diverse ways. Actually, most of the money for the subversion in Cuba does not reach the island; it goes into the hands of intermediaries in Miami, Prague, Madrid and many other centers from which Cuban counterrevolutionary organizations launch their operations and some few which does not want to be left out of the ransack in such a juicy business. Among them there are some alleged NGOs –with close links and clearly subordinated to certain European governments-, such as Czech “People In Need” and the French “Reporters without Borders”. The Miami-based counterrevolutionary and terrorist organizations themselves are the favorite channel to finance the US-paid mercenaries in Cuba. Although Washington is aware that most of the money remains in the anti-Cuban mobster lair, services of the most passionate defenders of their annexationist purposes against the Cuban nation are still paid this way. Many of these counterrevolutionary organizations and foundations in Miami exist because of the war against Cuba itself. On 3rd of March, the then Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, in a joint hearing entitled “Second Anniversary of Castro’s brutal repression against the disidents”, at the Western Hemisphere, Africa and Human Rights and International Operations sub-committees of the House International Relations Committee, he announced a 14.4 million dollars to be added to a 29 million dollar batch proposed by the “Commission of the Assistance to a Free Cuba” which would be used for the support of the “Cuban civil society”. Mercenaries Felix Bonne, René Gómez and Martha Beatriz Roque partook in the hearing through a phone call from the USIS in Havana. On 10th of June, the House International Relations Committee adopted an amendment to the H:R.2601 project sponsored by Jeff Flake: “Foreign Relations Authorization Act Fiscal year 2006 and 2007”, aimed at allocating 5 million dollars of the State Department Educational and Cultural Affairs Buro, to promote programs of schollarships and the Office for the Exchange of Citizens. These funds would used in developing professional, cultural and youth programs, to offer schollarships for Cubans. However, priority to “disidents, pro-democracy activists and members of the civil society” was imposed as condition to grant the schollarships. The Director of Latin America and the Caribbean Office of the National Endowment for Democracy Christopher Sabatini admitted that 20% of NED assistance that Cuba receives is in cash, mainly for the “support of the activits’ work, and trips”. Likewise, he announced that the Cuba budget would reach 2 million USD in 2006. - Continued delays in the lawuit and harassment against Five young Cubans unjustly incarcerated in the United States. On 9th of August 2005, 28 months after evidences were submitted, the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta finally announced its veredict revoking the unjust sentences that a Miami-based Courtroom had imposed over four years ago, against Five young anti-terrorist Cuban. The Atlanta Court’s ruling based its decision in the injust and one-sided process in Miami. Addicionally, the Court recognized the right of the Five to be impartially trialed in a non-hostile atmosphere and to have a fair trial as envisioned in the United States Constitution. This decision adds to the one issued on the 27th of May by the Task Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN Human Rights Commission referring to the Five. It said that “incarseration of Mr. Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez, Mr. Fernando González Llort, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, ramón Labañino Salazar and René gonzález Sehwerert is arbitrary, it contravenes Article 14 pf the International Convention on Political and Civil Rights and falls in Category III of the applicable categories, reviewed in those cases submitted to the Task Group”. A number of verbal attacks and concrete actions were taken by the most reactionary groups of the Cuban community in the United States and its representatives in the Government, from the moment the afore mentioned decisions were made public, which evidenced the growing awareness of the unjust incarceration of these five Cuban young men. On 21st of July, the Miami Herald published statements by an unidentified official from the State Department, who stated that the decision of the Task Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the HRC in regards with the Five was “ridiculous, perplex and a consequence of political motivations due to a maneuver orchestrated by the Cuban government”. The same day the Atlanta Court’s decision was made public, Manny Vázquez, director the Cuban American National Foundation said the “decision on the Five has been regretable and unfortunate”. He added that he hoped a new trial would take place “even if it cost 20 million USD more”. José Basulto, president of the counterrevolutionary organization “Brothers to the Rescue”, stated that “the Atlanta court based its conclusion on a negative and forged image of the exiled community”. Ninoska Pérez Castellón, Council for the Freedom of Cuba spokeswoman, stated that the Court’s decision was “racist” in terms of the Cuban-American community. As from the appeal request submitted by the Attorney’s office on 31st of October, the Atlanta 11th Circuit of Appeals agreed to have three judges review the decision of that Courtroom on the Case of the Five, before the 12 judges in full session. The acceptance of this appeal annulled the previous verdict but the Cuban young men remain in jail. Following this new ruling, Representative and anti-Cuban mobsteress Ileana ross-Lehtinen in a press release, stated its satisfaction for the new ruling by the Atlanta 11th Circuit Court of Appeal in the case of the Five and she expressed its confidence that they would remain adamant with respect to the original veredict and the sentence of thos “enemies of the United States”. - Reinforcement of the media and radio electronic warfare against the Cuban Revolution US radio and TV transmitions against Cuba violate international norms in this issue. The US authorities overlook the renewed requests of the Telecommunication International Union to cease jamming of Cuban TV services. The use of sophisticated means and the air force, is not in harmony with the true radioelectronic and mediatic warfare against Cuba. In 2005, this open war against our country zeroed in on the replacement of the EC-130 military aircraft. To this end, the US Congress adopted in November 7 the “Science and the Department, Justice and Trade Department Appropriation Act 2006”, allocating 37,656,000 million dollars for Radio and TV Martí, which accounts for a 10 million dollar increase. These funds will purchase a Boeing’737 to replace the EC-130 in the transmision of the signals against Cuba, once a week. - The United States increases the manipulation of the bilateral migratory issues 2005 reflected a dangerous tendency in the activities of the US authorities in their attempts at publicaly blaming and discrediting Cuba for allegedly failing to comply with the migratory agreements, when the facts indicate a unrelenting efforts in Miami and Washington to to thwart the implementation of the migratory agreements. Miami press and the anti-Cuban mob in Washington launched a open offensive demanding the interruption of the so-called “dry feet-wet feet” policy. On 3rd of June, the State Department published their Report on People Trade in 2005 which as part of their slanderous campaigns against Cuba it included the Island, for the third consecutive year, in Level 3 (the worst) This is the level that shows countries that fail to comply with the minimum standards and do not make an effort to fight the trafficking of people. The report stresses the issue of infant prostitution and its alleged link with the Cuban tourist industry. On 27th of September, the Miami Herlad published the editorial “An inadequate Migratory policy”. The paper says: “the dry feet-wet feet” policy creates a strong incentive for Cubans to dare cross the dire Florida Strait but does not guarantee that they do not undergo persecution or torture should they be repratriated. The US policy should allow the Cubans intercepted in highwaters to have the services of a migration legal representative to advice them during their assilum hearings which would be held preferibly at GNB”. Two days later, the same paper said that: “according to a State Department’s report, the Cuba Governmen does try to stop Cubans attempting emmigration on vessels when they are still in their territorial waters”. The paper also reproduced statemens from the Senator and anti-Cuban mob recruit mel Martinez, who said that “he is asking the government to reassess its stance on the Migratory Agreements, based on the Cuban tendency of triggering migratory tides everytime the political situation gets tough”. The daily also reports that the Cuban American National Foundation sent letter to legislators and to President Bush asking to put an end to the current policy. On the 8th of November, the USIS in Havana issued a press release on the occasion of the decease three days earlier of two women in the ocean on board of a vessel manned by Cuban illegal emigrants traffickers. The press release accuses Cuba of “continue leading its citizens to risk their lives at see by refusing economic opportunities and political freedoms”. As total breakdown for 2005, 80 repatriations were carried out at Cabañas seaport accounting for the return of 2532 illegal emigrants, which almost doubled 2004 figures of 1,359. In general, from May 1995, when the Agreements were signed until December 2005, 532 repatriation operations were conducted through Cabañas seaport with the return of 9,333 illegal emigrants. - The United States unjustly features Cuba in the “black lists” of all State Department’s unilateral reports. On the 28th of February, the State Department published its “Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2004”. The document reiterates the accusations of alleged lack of freedom of expression, press and meeting in Cuba, criticizes the system of schools to the country-side and the HIV-AIDS patient program. During its presentation, the US Department of State Under Secretary for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky said that “Cuba is a blight”. Or course, not a single word about the tortures in Abu Ghraib, the concentration camps, arbitrarily detained people in the illegally occupied territory of Guantánamo or the illegal transportation of people to be tortured at secret detention centers. On the 4th of March, the Department of State presented it Annual Report on International Strategy for the Narcotic Control in 2004. Although they had to acknowledge Cuba’s results in this field, the information was again manipulated to carry out the instructions and guidelines of the Anti-Cuban policy. The efforts of the Cuban authorities in their fights against drug problems were minimized. On the 28th of March, the State Department published its report “Support of the Human Rights and Democracy: the US performance in 2004-2005”, in which Cuba was again included in the list of 98 world’s worst violators of human rights. On the 27th of April, the State Department published its “Country Report on Terrorism in 2004”. Again, Cuba was featured among the six “states sponsor of terrorism”. For the first time, the report referred to the alleged “capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction and other technologies that could fall in terrorist hands”, as one of the arguments to classify Cuba among the States that continue using terrorism as in instrument of foreign policy. Reference had already been made to the unjust treatment of Cuba in the Report on Trafficking in Person 2005, introduced by the Department of State on June 3rd. The World and Olympic champion Cuban Baseball team, was invited to play at the Baseball World Classic in March 2006 in various ballparks including Puerto Rico and United States. Cuba is entitled to play any world baseball contest because of the quality of its players and the holding of all amateur titles. However responding to pressures of representatives of the Cuban counterrevolution in the US Congress and other powerful US ultra right circles, the authorities of that country initially ruled to deny Cuba the possibility of participating in the competition. On the 12 of December, the New Your Sun says that anti-Cuban congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart wrote to the Secretary of Treasury, John Snow, urging him not to grant the license requested by the Major Leagues to Cuba, to deprive Cuba of the cash prize for its participation in the BWC and stressing that, otherwise it would be a violation of the US rules “to finance with US money the oppressive machinery of a country that is listed among the terrorist nations”. In response to this and to other pressures, on the 14th of December, OFAC denied Major Leagues a visa to travel to Cuba to negotiate our country’s participation in the BWC. In this respect, Molly Millerwise, spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, in a message addressed to AP, pointed out that “it is our policy not to confirm, deny or discuss the granting of licenses”, adding that “generally speaking, the Cuba embargo prevents the signing of contracts in which Cuba or Cuban nationals may have interests”. It is fair to underscore that Cuba had the support of a significant group of congress people within the United States and Major Leagues themselves, who always tried to revert the OFAC’s, for which they used the corresponding channels. They even stated that they would not announce a replacement for the Cuban team until all possibilities were exhausted. Representatives Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Mel Martínez quickly reacted thanking Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Treasury John Snow their ruling denying the license to Cuba. They also had initiatives such as allowing Cuban born athletes currently playing in the United States to represent Cuba at the competition. At the organiser’s persistence including those at the Puerto Rican venue, the effort of legislators and people of good faith in the United States, and particularly Cuba’s announcement of the donation of the money that could be made as result of its participation, to the hurricane Katrina victims. Luckily by January 2006 the US authorities decided to allow the Cuban participation. Cuba, then, would play a fair game with the rest of the contending teams. Our country will compete inspired by the purest Olympic ideals, will not receive a dime. Our athletes play out of their love for sport and their Cuban fans” - The anti-Cuban terrorist mob reinforces its influence on the current administration. This year there were promotions and appointments for the Cuban-decent mobsters both for the US executive and the legislative. On the 27th of May, President Bush appointed Juan Carlos Zárate, an American of Cuban mother, National Security deputy advisor. Previously, Zarate worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorism & Violent Crime. Other officers of Cuban descent, perhaps better known, also went up the stairs in their respective carriers in the legislative. Florida representative Lincoln Díaz Balart was nominated last January 22, Vice-president of the Rules Committees of the House. These movements allow the anti-Cuban mob to climb a more solid institutional situation to oppose all attempts at easing the policy of blockade and hostility against the Cuban people as well as all initiative that might lead to the normalization of the almost non-existing relations between Cuba and the United States. On the 27th of July, the then Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega stated to the press at the Capitol, before the “Diplomacy in Latin America” hearing started: “there are irrefutable evidences that Cuba and Venezuela are trying to politically distebalize not only Bolivia but other Latinamerican countries”, and added that “the answer should not come from the State Department but from the region as a whole”. The next day, the New York Times reported the statements by Assistant Undersecretary of State for Defense in charge of Inter-American affairs, who said: Cuba and Venezuela are involved in a destabilization campaign all over Latin America to install leftist governments and they can accomplish their purpose in Bolivia with the rise to power of a populist Indigenous leader (…) Cuba has between 35 and 50 thousand people in Venezuela involved in the field of health, sports and education”. Mr. Maurer of course, cannot comprehend the solidarity and human nature of the presence of our physicians and teachers in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The Government that walked down on hundreds of thousand of poor people with limited resources in New Orleans cannot understand that there are other countries that choose to share what they have. The United States, which only with the funds of the deployment of Army and the National Guard units can assure humanitarian missions, will never understand that thousands and thousand of Cuban civil professionals can provide solidarity, moved just by the high human values they share. Between August 16-18, during a visit to Paraguay and Peru, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, stated that “there are evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the Bolivian situation, in ways that never help solve the problems”. Other members of the delegation pointed out that “Cuba, with the support of the Venezuelan money, reactivated its underground networks all over the region, particularly in Bolivia”. On the 8th of September, the then Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega said to the press that “Castro and Chavez represent everything contrary to the progress of this Hemisphere”. On the 30th of the same month, the Miami Herald reproduced statement by the anti-Cuban senator Mel Martinz (R-Fl) on the “dangerous relation between Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro”. He said that “we already are seeing the problem of radical ideology extending like a virus. Castro is providing technical assistance whereas Chavez provides oil and money”. Cuba: a threat? Efforts to consider Cuba a threat to the national security of the United States crash against the transparency and objectiviness of our people to rebuke each statement this sense. Irrefutable facts, testimonies and evidences have neutralized each slander. Each slander have fallen down the abiss by its own weight. The strong statements of experienced and predtigious former US troops have confirmed the content of the denoucnment and the true story about Cuba. On the 17th of March, 2005, the CIA director Porter Goss, during a hearing at the Senate’s Armed Service Committee on threats to the national security, he identified Cuba and Venezuela as “potential conflictive points” for 2005. And added that the relations between Chavez and Fidel infuriate to the United States. In October 17th, anti-Cuban representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s office issued a press release on the meeting with the energy sector to be held in Cancún, Mexico. The document said: “it is distressing that representatives of the US energy sector, consider meeting with their Cuban counterparts when Castro regime continues to be a threat for our regional stability and national security”. On 28th of November, Ros-Lehtinen herself published in el Diario Las Américas, an indepth article entitled “Cuba and Irán: a disquieting association”, where she states that “the growing relations between Cuba and Iran pose a serious threat to the US national security and stability in Latin America and in the Middle East”. And she concluded saying that “we must take steps to immediately neutralize the present and future threats that this Cuba-Iran and alsoVenezuela alliance may represent”. What are those steps? Obviously, Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen would be very pleased if the US marines landed in Cuba. However we take time to remind those who think like her a fragment of the letter addressed by Cuban independentist General Antonio Maceo to the Cuban patriot José Dolores Poyo, director of the independentist newspaper El Yara, in Key West, in June 13th 1884. On that occasion, Maceo accertained: “‘whosoever attempts to take possession of Cuba shall conquer but the blood-soaked ground beneath his feet, if he does not first perish in battle’ Cuba has many children willing to give their life to preserve our dignity, honor, social justice and freedom.
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